N. Korea Marks Reactor Project

Amid fireworks and applause, North Korean officials and representatives of a U.S. government-led consortium marked a new phase in the planned construction of two nuclear reactors Wednesday. But a senior U.S. official said the North wasn’t complying with the terms of the deal.

Under a 1994 U.S.-North Korean agreement, the consortium was to build the reactors to meet the Communist country’s desperate need for power. In exchange, the North said it would freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program and allow international scrutiny.

North Korea has yet to open its facilities to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

North Korea “must start meaningful cooperation now” with the agency “and must comply with all of its obligations,” said Jack Pritchard, a State Department official.

The CIA suspects that the North might have stockpiled enough plutonium to make one or two atomic bombs. Pyongyang denies it.

Pritchard said the North’s failure to allow inspections, which would take three to four years, could undermine the $4.6-billion reactor project. Political tension and funding problems have delayed it for several years, prompting criticism from North Korea.

Pritchard spoke at a cement-pouring ceremony at the reactor site in Kumho, a remote, coastal region near the border with Russia. Attending were 100 government representatives from the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union, all members of the consortium.