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China rejects request to cut off N. Korea oil
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-08 09:06 China rejected a U.S. envoy's
proposal to cut off North Korea’s oil supply as a way to pressure N. Korea
government to return to disarmament talks, The Washington Post reported on
Saturday.
Chinese officials rebuffed the U.S. idea, claiming it would
damage their pipeline, the newspaper said citing unnamed U.S. officials.
In a meeting in Beijing on April 26, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Christopher Hill raised the suggestion of a "technical" interruption of fuel.
But Chinese official Yang Xiyu complained the Americans were focused on too
narrow a range of tools for China to influence Pyongyang, according to The
Washington Post.
Yang told Hill that a shutdown would seriously damage
the pipeline running from its Liaoning province to North Korea because the fuel
has a very high paraffin content. Paraffin wax can be a problem in the
transportation of crude oil, clogging pipelines and requiring their
replacement.
China provides much of North Korea's energy and food, and
has boosted trade with its neighbor by 20 percent in 2004, the Post
said.
The reported push for a Chinese fuel cutoff came amid signs that
North Korea may be planning to test a nuclear weapon. That warning came as a
U.S. defense official said U.S. spy satellite images had shown what may be
preparations for an underground nuclear test, although the official said it
might also be "an elaborate ruse".
In February, North Korea announced it
was a nuclear power and said it would not return to six-nation talks on its
nuclear programs, which have been stalled for 11 months, because of the Bush
administration's "hostile policy."
U.S. officials have increasingly
turned to China to help bring North Korea back to the negotiating
table.
"China has done a very good job. But China alone is not enough,"
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told reporters on Friday while attending a
meeting in Tokyo.
Signifying the divide between Washington and Pyongyang, Chinese officials
also told Hill about an unofficial North Korean proposal for ending the impasse.
The North Korean idea called for a secret bilateral meeting between the United
States and North Korea, during which the United States would privately apologize
for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's comment that North Korea was an
"outpost of tyranny." After that secret session, North Korea would consider
returning to six-nation negotiations, The Washington Post reported.
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