North Korea Proposed 5 Steps to Disarmament, Official Says

North Korea proposed a five-step plan to abandon its nuclear weapons programs at the round of disarmament talks that ended last week, a South Korean Cabinet official said today.

Under the plan, North Korea would drop its intention to test nuclear weapons and agree to not transfer nuclear technology or materials to other nations, Unification Minister Chung Dong Young said in Seoul.

The North would agree to not produce more weapons, then suspend and later dismantle its nuclear program, subject to verification, Chung said.

Finally, the North would rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and adhere to safeguards under the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said.

Despite the proposal, North Korea has stuck by its insistence that it won’t make any move until the United States offers concessions to the North for giving up its arms. “We will never move first,” Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan said Saturday in Beijing.