South Korea's top nuclear envoy criticized North Korea for stopping work to disable its atomic program, saying Monday the move appeared to be “a typical tactic” to gain more concessions in international disarmament negotiations. “North Korea made a bad move again this time,” Kim Sook told a Seoul forum, according to the text of his speech provided by the Foreign Ministry. Last week, North Korea said it had stopped disabling its nuclear reactor and threatened to restore the plutonium-producing facility, citing Washington's failure to remove it from the US list of terror sponsors. The US, in response, repeated its demand that North Korea must first agree to a plan to verify an accounting of nuclear programs it submitted in June, if it wants to be taken off the list. Kim said the North Korean move has put international disarmament talks into “a critical juncture” but that Pyongyang “does not appear to want to scuttle” the talks – involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan – “as a whole.” The envoy also stressed that North Korea should immediately resume the disarmament measures and cooperate in establishing a nuclear verification regime. “Recognition of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state is out of the question,” he said.
