The 1st meeting to revise the Korea-US Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement was held in Washington, D.C. on October 25 with the delegations of both governments in attendance. Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs Cho Hyun and US State Department’s Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control Robert Einhorn led their respective delegations.

    - The Korean delegation consists of officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power. The US delegation includes officials from the Department of State and the Department of Energy.

During the meeting, the two sides discussed ways to revise the current Korea-US Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement, which was last revised in 1974 and will expire in March, 2014, to make it more future-oriented. They also discussed measures to engage in reciprocal technical cooperation in a wide range of areas, and promote industrial and commercial cooperation.

Both sides discussed conducting a joint study on methods for the management of spent nuclear fuel, including pyroprocessing, and agreed to hold a meeting between the two countries’ technological experts regarding the scope and schedule for the joint study as soon as possible.