North Korea has issued a corrected version of an official statement whose original language indicated the Stalinist state was reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods. A new version of Friday's statement is now posted on the website of Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. A foreign ministry spokesman was quoted on Friday by the news agency as saying North Korea was "successfully reprocessing" 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. The dispatch posted on the website, posted today but dated Friday, replaces the language with "successfully going forward to reprocess" the rods, stopping short of saying actual reprocessing had begun. The rest of the statement was unchanged. KCNA has given no explanation for the replacement of the original dispatch.
| That's what comes of picking your translators for party loyalty, rather than language skills... |
Friday's statement threw into doubt three-way negotiations scheduled for Beijing this week bringing together senior officials from Washington and Pyongyang for the first time since the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions erupted in October. The new English-language version of the foreign ministry spokesman's statement appeared closer to the original Korean-language version carried Friday by KCNA. Friday's Korean-language statement, monitored in Seoul, said North Korea had progressed "to the point of reprocessing fuel rods".
| Oh. Well. That's different, then. |
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