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N. Korea fuel shipments halted
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The international consortium charged with implementing a 1994 energy agreement with North Korea agreed Thursday to suspend fuel oil deliveries to the Communist nation after revelations last month it has a secret nuclear weapons program. The executive board of the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) -- which consists of the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union -- condemned North Korea's pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, which violates its obligations under the 1994 agreement. "This program threatens regional and international security and undermines the international nonproliferation regime based on the NPT [Nonproliferation Treaty]," the board said in a statement. "North Korea must promptly eliminate its nuclear weapons in a visible and verifiable manner." (Full statement) The fuel oil shipments will be suspended beginning in December, the consortium said. "Future shipments will depend on North Korea's concrete and credible actions to dismantle completely its highly enriched uranium program," the statement said. "In this light, other KEDO activities with North Korea will be reviewed." Earlier Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called on KEDO to stop the shipments. "North Korea has to end this program that we discovered to enrich uranium," Powell said in a news conference after meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham. "We cannot continue to provide fuel in this manner in light of the North Korean violation of the understanding," the secretary said. However, Powell said, a shipment that left Singapore November 6 with 42,800 metric tons of fuel oil and is scheduled to arrive in North Korea next week will be allowed to continue. "We believe it was appropriate and prudent to send in this shipment, which is already on the high seas and is only a few days away from docking," he said. In agreeing to the 1994 framework on nonproliferation, North Korea said it would freeze its nuclear weapons program in exchange for 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil a year and two light-water nuclear reactors that cannot easily be converted to military use. CNN Producer Ronni Berke contributed to this report
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