Nuke watchdog: North Korea is top problem
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-13 08:35

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Tuesday that North Korea is a more immediate problem for nuclear arms control officials than Iran.

Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said both the North Korean and Iranian issues could only be solved through diplomacy.

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, gives an address at an International Conference on Security and Nuclear Terrorism in London, March 16, 2005.[Reuters]

"For us North Korea is a black hole," he said. He said unlike Iran, where negotiations were ongoing, in North Korea "the parties are now dormant or in a frozen situation."

ElBaradei said he hoped a way would be found to "engage North Korea in a fully substantive discussion" about issues associated with the nuclear problem, including regional security, economic sanctions, trade negotiations and humanitarian assistance.

"These two situations — Iran and Korea — are both complex (and) cover interrelated issues," he said during a visit to Albania to donate nuclear medical equipment to detect cancer.

ElBaradei said he was optimistic that he would eventually be able to tell Tehran "that it has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful uses but also, at the same time, to assure the international community that the Iranian program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

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