N. Korea Bars U.S. Access to Suspected Nuclear Site

WASHINGTON —  North Korea has failed to meet U.S. demands for access to the site of underground construction work that could be part of a revived nuclear program, the State Department said Wednesday.

“I cannot say that we were satisfied with the response we received. . . . We did not get access on terms we find acceptable. There are wide gaps in our approach to this problem,” said spokesman James P. Rubin, reporting on two days of meetings in Pyongyang between U.S. and North Korean officials.

The U.S. delegation, led by envoy Charles Kartman, left Wednesday after 12 hours of talks.

It was the highest-level U.S. mission to visit the secretive Stalinist state since 1994.

The United States says failure to secure access to inspect the site could jeopardize a 1994 agreement under which North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in return for free fuel and safer nuclear reactors built by a global consortium.

Rubin said the North Koreans brought up a request for financial compensation in exchange for access and the United States flatly rejected it.

He declined to say whether North Korea set other conditions for inspections. The two sides agreed to meet again.

The construction work came to light in August when South Korea said U.S. spy satellite photos showed thousands of workers burrowing into a mountain near the site of a nuclear plant mothballed under the 1994 agreement.

The United States has not yet concluded that the work at the site breaks the agreement.