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CNN Saturday Morning News
Concerns About A North Korean Nuclear Crisis
Aired December 28, 2002 - 09:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Up first on our program, concerns about the potential fallout from the North Korean nuclear crisis. The UN nuclear agency says its inspectors will leave the North early next week after the communist state's decision to expel the inspectors and press on with its nuclear plans, whatever they may be.
CNN Seoul bureau chief Sohn Jie-Ae has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOHN JIE-AE, CNN SEOUL BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The International Atomic Energy Agency decided to comply with North Korea's demands to boot out its inspectors, after the North ignored the director general's pleas to let them stay.
MOHAMED ELBARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: I think it's a country in a defiant mode right now. They are walking away from their international obligation, they are throwing away the inspection system. I -- this is a very dangerous precedent.
JIE-AE: This would in effect stop the outside world from keeping an eye on the North's nuclear activities.
In a letter to the IAEA Friday, North Korea said since it is reactivating the frozen reactor, the inspectors' mission to oversee the freeze was automatically over. The North also said it was getting ready to reactivate a laboratory that Washington suspects could be used to reprocess the spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium.
Adding to rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, the U.S.-led UN Command said North Korea had violated the armistice that halted the Korean War by bringing machine guns into the buffer zone separating the two Koreas, a charge that the North has previously denied.
Defusing this escalating crisis was very much the topic of an emergency National Security Council meeting in South Korea. The council members called the recent moves a grave threat to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula.
(on camera): South Korea says it wants to relay its message to North Korea directly. Ministerial talks between the two Koreas are scheduled for early next year. Other inter-Korean projects so far are continuing without major disruptions. Such contacts have South Korean officials hoping for a peaceful resolution.
Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 28, 2002 - 09:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Up first on our program, concerns about the potential fallout from the North Korean nuclear crisis. The UN nuclear agency says its inspectors will leave the North early next week after the communist state's decision to expel the inspectors and press on with its nuclear plans, whatever they may be.
CNN Seoul bureau chief Sohn Jie-Ae has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOHN JIE-AE, CNN SEOUL BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The International Atomic Energy Agency decided to comply with North Korea's demands to boot out its inspectors, after the North ignored the director general's pleas to let them stay.
MOHAMED ELBARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: I think it's a country in a defiant mode right now. They are walking away from their international obligation, they are throwing away the inspection system. I -- this is a very dangerous precedent.
JIE-AE: This would in effect stop the outside world from keeping an eye on the North's nuclear activities.
In a letter to the IAEA Friday, North Korea said since it is reactivating the frozen reactor, the inspectors' mission to oversee the freeze was automatically over. The North also said it was getting ready to reactivate a laboratory that Washington suspects could be used to reprocess the spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium.
Adding to rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, the U.S.-led UN Command said North Korea had violated the armistice that halted the Korean War by bringing machine guns into the buffer zone separating the two Koreas, a charge that the North has previously denied.
Defusing this escalating crisis was very much the topic of an emergency National Security Council meeting in South Korea. The council members called the recent moves a grave threat to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula.
(on camera): South Korea says it wants to relay its message to North Korea directly. Ministerial talks between the two Koreas are scheduled for early next year. Other inter-Korean projects so far are continuing without major disruptions. Such contacts have South Korean officials hoping for a peaceful resolution.
Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
