SALON

Wednesday, Apr 24, 2013 9:15 PM UTC

US, SKorea extend nuclear agreement

By

Topics: From the Wires, ,

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and South Korea are extending for two years their current civilian nuclear agreement and postponing a contentious decision on whether Seoul will be allowed to reprocess spent fuel as it seeks to expand its atomic energy industry.

Wednesday’s announcement is a setback to South Korea’s new leader, Park Geun-hye, who had made revision of the 39-year-old treaty one of her top election pledges, but it alleviates a potential disagreement between the allies when Park visits Washington in two weeks to meet with President Barack Obama.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the extension will provide more time for the two governments to complete the complex negotiations on a successor agreement that will recommence in June.

“These are very technical talks, and both parties felt that we needed more time,” he told reporters.

South Korea is the world’s fifth-largest nuclear energy producer and is planning to expand domestic use of nuclear power and exports of nuclear reactors. But its radioactive waste storage is filling up, so it wants to be able to reprocess spent plutonium. It also wants to be able enrich uranium, a process that uranium must undergo to become a viable nuclear fuel. Currently, South Korea has to get countries such as the U.S. and France to do enrichment for it.

Revising the agreement is a sensitive matter as the same technologies can also be used to develop nuclear weapons. Washington has historically opposed allowing reprocessing and enrichment by its nuclear partners so as to prevent proliferation of the technology. The issue has added sensitivity on the divided Korean Peninsula because of North Korea’s active pursuit of such weapons and international demands it desist.

Victor Cha at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said the U.S. and South Korea had been deadlocked after two years of negotiations on a revised agreement and showing little inclination for compromise. Failure to extend the current agreement would have had a major impact on both the U.S. and South Korean nuclear industries, and would have been a blow to the Washington-Seoul alliance, he said.

“Punting the negotiations down the road for two years is advisable, benefits industry by creating some sense of predictability, and is politically neutral,” Cha wrote in a commentary Wednesday.

The current agreement, last amended in 1974, expires in March 2014. Its renewal has to be submitted to Congress by this summer for approval.

South Korea is a staunch U.S. ally hosting American forces. The relationship was founded on strong security ties but expanded last year when a landmark free trade pact came into effect.

Park will visit the White House on May 7. She will also address a joint meeting of Congress.

More Matthew Pennington.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
250 points251 points | 23 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
160 points161 points | 69 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
48 points49 points | 17 comments
vote
"New evidence reveals big banks still illegally foreclosing on thousands of homes – and weak settlement allows it."
28 points29 points | comment
vote
Are millennials delusional? New research suggests that members of "Generation Me" are warped by a profound sense of entitlement
25 points26 points | 16 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations