http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/...lGRH1gIcus0NUE

By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago


BEIJING -
North Korea missed a Saturday deadline for shutting down its main nuclear reactor, and a key U.S. negotiator said the country must keep the disarmament program from foundering.

The United States and other governments involved in six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear programs said the slipping of the 60-day deadline was significant, but not yet fatal to a two-month-old agreement that laid out a timetable for disarmament.

"It's time for the North Koreans to get moving on their issues," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, told reporters after meeting in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart.

Hill ticked off the unmet conditions of the February agreement: North Korea's failure to shutter its Yongbyon reactor and allow verification by U.N. inspectors, and
South Korea's resulting refusal to ship 50,000 tons of fuel oil to the North.

Saturday's missed deadline marked the latest setback for an agreement that, when reached in February, offered the prospect of disarming the world's newest declared nuclear power.

North Korea successfully tested a nuclear bomb in October.

But the timetable was tripped up by a dispute over North Korean deposits frozen in a tiny Macau bank, which was blacklisted by Washington for allegedly abetting money-laundering and counterfeiting. North Korea refused to make any move until the funds issue was resolved, but the matter — which was supposed to have been resolved in mid-March — dragged on until this past week.

Acknowledging that the frozen funds issue had bedeviled the talks, Hill said that the funds were now ready, and that North Korea should tap them and take steps to meet its other commitments.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry, in a statement released by the government news agency, said Friday that it would carry out its side of the agreement "when the lifting of the sanction is proved to be a reality."

The North Korean capital was consumed by preparations for Sunday's birthday of the communist nation's late founder, Kim Il Sung, and the country had no response to the latest comments from Hill.

In a typically truculent, 70-minute speech on state television, North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, vowed to defend the communist country from U.S. and Japanese attack.

Earlier in the day, Hill had struck a more pessimistic note, saying the North's lack of action over the 60-day milestone had sapped momentum from the disarmament process.

After talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, Hill said he was persuaded "to show patience for a couple more days."

Once that's done, he expected that negotiators for the six countries involved — South Korea, Japan and Russia as well as the U.S., North Korea and China — would likely meet again before the end of the month to discuss additional the next phases in disarming North Korea.

South Korea, which supports rapprochement with the North, played down the failure to meet the 60-day deadline, calling it a technicality.

"What is important is whether there is any wavering in political will," South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Chun Yung-woo, said in a telephone interview.

Once again NK playing their games.....
Jag