By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Wednesday welcomed South Korea’s proposal for electricity aid to North Korea as a ``very creative idea,’’ saying that it can help address Pyongyang’s energy needs without ``proliferation risks.’’

Rice said the U.S. has been aware of North Korea’s energy needs but the question has been how the necessity will be met, particularly in the face of ``significant proliferation concerns’’ about nuclear energy in North Korea.

``That’s what is so very useful about the South Korean proposal,’’ Rice said, appearing with South Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon at a news conference in Seoul.

A day earlier, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young announced the proposal, focusing on the provision of 2 million kilowatts of electricity to North Korea annually if Pyongyang agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

``It gives an opportunity for the North Koreans to address questions of their energy needs _ something that had been anticipated in the June 2004 proposal that is still in fact on the table,’’ Rice said.

During the third round of the six-party talks in 2004, Washington agreed to a resumption of heavy oil shipment to Pyongyang in return for the dismantlement of the communist state’s nuclear programs.

``The key here is similar,’’ Rice said. ``It is to prepare to dismantle its nuclear programs. We are about to find that out. But let me just remind everybody that what is on the table is essentially what was on the table in the June of 2004. That is where the talks will begin.’’

Rice arrived here Tuesday on the final leg of her Asia trip that also took her to China, Thailand and Japan. When she was in Beijing last week, North Korea announced that it would rejoin the six-party talks after more than a year-long boycott.

``The agreement of the North Koreans to come back to the talks is a very good step but only a first step,’’ she said. ``We look forward to a strategic decision by the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear weapons.’’

Rice reconfirmed that North Korea should give up all of its nuclear programs, including the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) program.

``Nuclear weapons program means nuclear weapons program,’’ she said. ``That means plutonium and HEU. Reprocessing and enrichment, the fuel cycle so to speak, is a part of a nuclear weapons program particularly for the state that declared in discussions with the U.S. that it had an HEU program.’’

Washington has claimed in 2002 that Pyongyang admitted to having the HEU program. But North Korea has denied it. This difference has been considered one of the biggest obstacles to resolving the nuclear problem.

When asked if she is willing to visit Pyongyang, Rice said she has ``no such plan,’’ adding that it is not a problem for the U.S. alone, but an issue that should be addressed by within the six-party frame.

North Korea, which fears it might come under attack by the U.S., is demanding a security guarantee and economic incentives in return for freezing its nuclear weapons programs.

But Washington has insisted that Pyongyang move first to verifiably scrap its nuclear weapons programs before any concessions are granted.

im@koreatimes.co.kr