North Koreans Continue Talks With Seoul, Spar With U.S.

North Korea’s government news agency reported Pyongyang may pull out of the 1994 accord because of delays in building two promised light-water reactors. The U.S. agreed to deploy a team to build the reactors in exchange for a North Korean pledge to halt any production of nuclear weapons.

The first reactor was scheduled to be completed by 2003, but political tensions and problems in funding the $4.6 billion project have led to delays.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry blamed the U.S. for slowing the construction, which it says has led to power shortages and further weakened the country’s economy.

“The reality is pushing us to the phase where we should make a final decision to go our own way,” the ministry said in a statement.

A ministry spokesman said the U.S. should compensate North Korea for the “grave difficulties in [the North’s] economy” because of the delay in building the reactors.

North Korea also rejected a U.S. demand to allow outside checks of its nuclear facilities. U.S. envoy Jack Pritchard, attending a ceremony at a planned nuclear reactor site last Wednesday, had said the North should allow international inspections “now, not later.”

Meanwhile, North and South Korean officials met at a hotel in Seoul for the second session of a three-day summit. Among the projects on the agenda is the construction of a railway across the two countries’ tense border, funding for military talks and a program to reunite families separated by the bitter rivalry that’s flared since the 1950s.

Rhee Bon-jo, a South Korean delegation spokesman, told reporters the meeting occurred “in a good atmosphere as both sides engaged in substantive discussions, rather than arguments.”

Chief North Korean delegate Kim Ryong Song also said the talks were “going well.”

This week’s talks are the first high-level discussions between the two countries since last November. Relations between North and South Korea had shown improvement in recent years, with the countries’ leaders participating in a historic summit in 2000.

But tensions between the U.S. and North Korea — labeled by President Bush in January as a member of an “axis of evil” — and a naval battle between North and South in June have reportedly slowed efforts at reconciliation.

The two nations are expected to issue a joint statement after talks wind down later this week.