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US spells out North Korea plan

* Offers DPRK 3-month period to prepare to dismantle its nuclear programme
* Says it will consider taking North Korea off list of terrorist states

BEIJING: The United States offered North Korea on Wednesday a three-month period to prepare to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme and promised to investigate its energy needs, a senior US official said.

In return, the communist North must provide a full listing of its nuclear activities, disable some dangerous materials and allow monitoring.

The United States, on the first day of six-party talks on the North Korean crisis in Beijing, also said again it had no hostile intent and it would look at the North’s energy needs, the official said.

“We will be patient,” the official said, adding that the United States was not insisting that North Korea do everything before it reciprocated and that it wanted to solve the crisis in a peaceful way.

South Korean delegate Lee Soo-hyuck said Seoul offered to provide heavy fuel oil to North Korea as part of compensation for a freeze and then quick dismantlement, adding the US proposal resembled the South’s plan.

“The US proposal is very complicated and North Korea is going to need time to analyse it,” he told reporters.

Terrorist state: The United States said it will consider taking North Korea off its list of terrorist states if it meets conditions to abolish its nuclear weapons programmes.

Under the proposal, aid would flow immediately after a commitment by North Korea to dismantle its plutonium and uranium-based weapons programs.

Nations other than the United States would be given the go-ahead to start sending heavy fuel oil while Washington would offer a “provisional” guarantee not to invade the country, he said.

The US would also begin direct talks about lifting an array of American economic sanctions, and knocking North Korea off its list of terrorist states.

“We would look at their energy needs, look at their concerns on sanctions, their concerns of being on the list of terrorist states,” the official said. agencies

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