North Korea breaks nuclear accord

Advertiser News Services

WASHINGTON — Confronted with new evidence, North Korea has admitted operating a secret nuclear weapons program in defiance of an agreement with the United States.

The surprise development threatens to provoke a confrontation on the Korean peninsula and presents the Bush administration with a second crisis as it contemplates a war with Iraq.

The White House said yesterday that it considers the secretive Communist government "in material breach" of a 1994 agreement in which it promised to freeze its nuclear weapons program.

"The United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all its commitments ... and eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner," a senior administration official said.

Relations between North Korea and the United States have deteriorated since the Bush administration took office. Earlier this year, Bush labeled the country part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran.

The latest confrontation came Oct. 3-5 in Pyongyang during the highest-level talks between the two countries since the Bush administration took office in January 2001. A U.S. delegation confronted the North Koreans with evidence that North Korea has been trying to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

Initially, the North Koreans denied the accusations, but to the diplomats' amazement, a senior official then acknowledged that North Korea was pursuing the nuclear weapons program "and more." He would not specify what "more" meant, administration officials said.

The North Koreans did not offer to abandon the program in exchange for U.S. concessions, as they have done in the past, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. delegation left the next day and began consulting with its key allies in the region, South Korea and Japan.

The South Korean government was to hold an emergency Cabinet meeting today to discuss the issue.

Administration officials say they hope for a peaceful resolution. But the situation confronts the administration with a significant problem as it contemplates going to war with Iraq. The suspicion that Iraq continues to hoard chemical and biological weapons is cited by the Bush administration as grounds to threaten that nation with an invasion. By that logic, North Korea — which the CIA says already has one or two nuclear bombs, as well as long-range ballistic missiles — might be a more apt target than Iraq. But any U.S. military action could provoke the North Koreans to attack South Korea, where 37,000 U.S. troops are based.

North Korea has a track record of going to the brink of war. It refused to cooperate with nuclear inspectors in 1992-94, when it signed an agreement with the Clinton administration to shut down known nuclear installations in return for two civilian nuclear reactors.

U.S. officials declined to detail Washington's intelligence evidence that Pyongyang had violated its pledge to refrain from developing nuclear weapons, other than to say it is "compelling" and "very detailed."

"It basically shows they in no way kept their word," he said.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and an expert on North Korea's nuclear program, says the evidence shows the North Koreans have purchased equipment to make gas centrifuges, which are used to produce weapons-grade material from ordinary uranium.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, whose trip to North Korea was the subject of intense inter-agency debate and delayed at least once, met North Korean leaders in hope of persuading them to cease their nuclear efforts, U.S. officials said.

"We were fairly sure they had this program. ... We wanted them to knock it off. That's why Jim Kelly went over there," one official said.

But the North Koreans shocked Kelly and his delegation by flatly admitting the existence of the program and declaring the Agreed Framework, as the 1994 deal was called, dead.

"The last meeting we had was with (North Korean First Foreign Minister ) Kang Sok Joo, and Secretary Kelly told him in the sternest terms that this was most unwelcome," a U.S. official said. As to the North Korean reaction, "I would not describe it as apologetic," the official said. "Kang Sok Joo was assertive, aggressive about it."

The Agreed Framework, negotiated under President Clinton, averted what might have been an armed conflict with the United States over North Korea's moves toward reprocessing plutonium into nuclear weapons fuel.

It was unclear why the North Koreans had embarked on a uranium-based weapons program, rather than using the plutonium stockpiles they are believed to have. Uranium-based weapons are easier to produce and require a less sophisticated design. Because the first U.S. uranium-based nuclear bombs were dropped in 1945, there is a wealth of publicly available material about how to make them, nuclear weapons experts said.

However, crude uranium bombs are big and heavy, so it is unclear whether the North Koreans would have the technical capability to mount them onto their Roh Dong ballistic missiles, which are believed to have a range long enough to hit Alaska.

The North Korean admission comes at an awkward time for both South Korea and Japan, which despite the reservations of the Bush administration, have both tried to accelerate their plans to improve ties with the isolated North.

On Tuesday, five Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents nearly a quarter-century ago, returned to Tokyo for an emotional homecoming "reunion" with their families. The visit was one tangible result of an unprecedented summit held last month between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Japan was scheduled to host talks later this month with North Korean officials in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on further steps towards normalizing relations — but those talks may now be in doubt.

A spokeswoman for Koizumi said today that the government was "aware of the reports" about North Korea's nuclear activities, but had not received "official comments" from Washington. "The doubt that North Korea might be developing nuclear weapons is not totally new," the spokeswoman, Misako Kaji said. But she noted that the government had not yet decided whether to cancel the next round of talks aimed at establishing diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

As for South Korea, it and the North are still technically in a state of war, having never signed a peace treaty although the Korean War ended in 1953. But the two countries recently have taken steps toward reconciliation.

In Seoul, South Korea's Deputy Minister for foreign affairs Lee Tae-sik, told a press conference that his government urged North Korea to abide by all Geneva agreements governing nuclear weapons as well as "a South-North Korea joint declaration to make all the Korean peninsula nuclear-free.

"All the issues including the North's nuclear program should be resolved through peaceful methods and dialogue," Lee said.