North Korea has refused to dispose of unused nuclear fuel and destroy a cooling tower at its main nuclear complex until it receives benefits promised under a disarmament deal, a South Korean news report said Monday. North Korea began disabling key facilities at its nuclear complex north of Pyongyang last month under the watch of U.S. experts, pledging to complete the process by year's end in return for international energy aid and other concessions. Washington recently sent delegations to North Korea demanding that disablement measures be applied to unused nuclear fuel and a cooling tower at the plutonium-producing complex to make it unusable for at least one year, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, a mass circulation South Korean newspaper, reported from Washington. The North rebuffed the U.S. demands, saying it can only take those steps after it has received new benefits under the next phase of the disarmament deal, the paper said. The South Korean Foreign Ministry would not comment Monday on the report, and the U.S. Embassy in Seoul was closed, the Associated Press reported.
