North Korea to suspend uranium enrichment

The announcement that North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will halt its enrichment of uranium, stop long-range missile and nuclear weapons testing, and allow international IAEA inspectors back into the Yongbyon nuclear facility is a major step forward to renewing progress in denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, according to Green Cross International.

"This is a most welcome initiative by North Korea, especially in light of the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul in late March," says Green Cross International (GCI) President Alexander Likhotal. “By reducing the nuclear threat, lasting peace can be achieved on the Korean Peninsula and wider region.”

GCI, which has advocated and promoted economic development and demilitarization globally since its founding by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993, believes this initiative was welcome not only from an arms control and nonproliferation perspective, but also a humanitarian perspective.

Dr. Paul Walker, head of the GCI's Environmental Security and Sustainability Program, says: "240 thousand metric tons of food aid, as promised by the United States, will improve security and peacemaking on the Korean Peninsula, while nuclear bombs would have dramatically undermined it.