Sinpo - City of North Korea

Sinpo is a port city on the coast of the Sea of Japan in central South Hamgyong province, North Korea. The average annual rainfall is 688 millimeters. It is an important base for fishing, and particularly for aquaculture. There are aquacultural cooperatives and a central aquaculture office.

In a 1994 agreement with the United States, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two new pressurized light-water reactors and 500,000 metric tons per year of heavy fuel oil to meet its energy needs until the new reactors become operational. The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, an international consortium led by the U.S. government, was established to implement the agreement. The European Union joined KEDO in September 1997. The construction of the light water reactors is to be performed under a contract with the Korean Electric Power Corporation, the South Korean utility.

North Korea is not legally obliged to resolve discrepancies over its past plutonium production until the main nonnuclear components of the light-water reactors are delivered, which is not expected until 2005.

By one estimate, these two large power plants are each capable of producing over 50 bombs worth of weapons-grade plutonium within the first 15 months of operation. Some fear that Pyongyang could separate that much plutonium in a few months, either by enhancing its current reprocessing plant or building one or more small laboratories.

On 21 November 2003 the members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization -- South Korea, the United States, Japan and the European Union -- officially announced a decision to halt work at the nuclear power plant construction site in North Korea starting early December 2003, and effective for a year. Despite the decision, Chang Sun-sup, chairman of the KEDO executive board, told reporters on 12 November 2003 that the suspension of construction, decided during a meeting in New York in early November, was open to reversal if the nuclear weapons standoff in North Korea took a turn for the better. As the biggest financier of the $4.6 billion project, South Korea stands to lose all of the $931 million it has invested so far if the project is scrapped for good. Japanese and South Korean officials expressed hopes that the decision to suspend construction of two nuclear reactors in North Korea will prompt the isolated communist state to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. Japanese government spokesman Jiro Okuyama urged North Korea to take seriously Friday's decision by KEDO to halt work on nuclear power reactors in the North. Mr. Okuyama says Japan wants to see a positive response from North Korea, to dismantle its nuclear weapons development program in an "irreversible, complete, and verifiable manner."