China reduces oil shipment to N Korea http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?slug=China+reduces+oil+shipment+to+N+Korea&id=92134
Saturday, August 26, 2006 (Seoul):
China has reduced shipments of crude oil to North Korea following its recent missile tests, a news report said on Saturday, as China and South Korea agreed to cooperate to prevent a possible nuclear test by Pyongyang.
South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that China has reduced "a significant amount" of its oil supplies to Pyongyang since the communist North conducted a series of missile launches on July 5 that have drawn UN Security Council sanctions.
The report cited unnamed officials at an oil storage terminal near the Chinese border city of Dandong.
The reported move by China, the communist North's closest ally and key provider of oil, comes as it has agreed with South Korea to cooperate to prevent a possible North Korean nuclear test.
Nuclear programme
Song Min-soon, South Korea's presidential security adviser, said on Saturday that Pyongyang's nuclear test would be "a grave situation of a different level from missile launches and that South Korea and China have agreed to continue cooperation not to let that situation occur."
Song, who returned from a two-day trip to Beijing on Friday, refused to elaborate how the two countries would cooperate.
South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have tried in six-party talks to convince the North to abandon its nuclear programme.
Since the missile launches, there have been growing concerns that Pyongyang may be preparing for a nuclear test following reports of suspicious activity in the communist nation.
Security guarantees
Meanwhile, South Korea's seismic authorities said they felt on Friday a tremor in North Korea that could have been triggered by some sort of a blast, but ruled out an underground nuclear test.
"We have concluded that it was not a natural earthquake, but an artificial one," Park Chang-soo, a spokesperson at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, said on Saturday.
"But it has nothing to do with a nuclear test, but just a typical blast," said Park, adding it was not unusual such waves are felt in North Korea, possibly from construction sites.
Park didn't say where the tremor originated from or how big it was.
Pyongyang has claimed it has nuclear weapons, but hasn't performed any known test.
Talks on the North's nuclear programme have been stalled since November, when negotiators failed to make headway in implementing a September agreement in which the North agreed to drop its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
Pyongyang has since refused to attend the six-party talks until Washington stops blacklisting a bank where the North's regime held accounts, a restriction imposed over alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. (AP)