Posted on: Sunday, January 12, 2003
North Korea talking 'holy war'
Advertiser News Services
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea yesterday vowed to "smash U.S. nuclear maniacs" in a "holy war" while threatening to begin reprocessing spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactor to make atomic bombs.
The isolated Stalinist regime in Pyongyang, which on Friday withdrew from the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, yesterday intensified its defiance with a rally in the capital, where a million people stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a downtown square embellished with anti-American banners and huge portraits of leader Kim Jong Il.
In Beijing, North Korea's ambassador to China said Pyongyang was considering resuming testing of ballistic missiles.
The North's harsh language appeared to grow in lockstep with international condemnation of its declaration Friday that it would no longer abide by the pact that served as the keystone in the global attempt to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, North Korean envoys who met with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in Santa Fe complained that they have tried for weeks to arrange talks with the Bush administration but have been constantly rebuffed, people involved in the talks said yesterday.
North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Han Song Ryol, asked Richardson to set up meetings with the administration to discuss Pyongyang's nuclear program, these sources said. Han said that no member of the U.S. mission to the United Nations will talk with any member of the North Korean delegation, although the two countries' U.N. ambassadors met regularly during the Clinton administration. Richardson passed along the request for dialogue to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The administration reacted critically to the latest North Korean threats. State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said: "While the delegates were in New Mexico, North Korea continued to take steps in the wrong direction, especially their withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to threaten further steps such as missile testing, that would raise tensions with the international community."
North Korea's defiance had been building for weeks but intensified with yesterday's rally, when a series of leaders issued anti-American diatribes — one vowing the North would seek "revenge with blood" toward any country that violates its sovereignty. As officials spoke, the people erupted in chants and pumped fists toward the winter sky, shouting in unison, "We wholeheartedly support it!"
Other speakers praised Kim for the withdrawal from the nonproliferation treaty, calling the move a "legitimate measure for self-defense."
Premier Hong Song Nam said North Korea was determined to "defend its right to exist from the U.S. imperialists who put an 'axis of evil' cap on us and forced its lackey International Atomic Energy Agency to adopt a resolution to defame the Republic."
Another official called for launching "a holy war against the United States with a military-led might," as the crowd shouted in unison in response.
Still another urged that the North "punish the enemy with bloody revenge that we have harbored for 100 years."
Other squares, plazas and streets of Pyongyang also thronged with people "with burning hatred for the U.S. imperialists," the official news agency said.
The threat of new missile tests came from the North's ambassador to China, Choe Jin Su, who said tests could resume if the United States does not take steps to improve relations.
The tests would be the first since 1998, when North Korea fired a missile over Japan into the Pacific. Pyongyang later imposed a moratorium on tests which was to last into 2004.
Another official left open the possibility of the North reprocessing spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactor to make atomic bombs. The United States believes that North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons and could make more in six months if reprocessing to extract plutonium is resumed.
Son Mun San, in charge of Pyongyang's relations with the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, said in Vienna, Austria, that spent fuel rods were locked down after a 1994 deal under which the Clinton administration promised big oil deliveries and two light-water nuclear reactors in return for North Korea shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear facility.
Spent fuel from that type of reactor is more easily converted to materials for nuclear bombs. Both sides have stepped back from the deal since the North allegedly told the United States in October it had a secret nuclear program.
Son said the reprocessing plant stands in a state of "readiness." He said the reactor at the site would be up and running in a matter of weeks, roughly in line with earlier forecasts by the Vienna-based nuclear agency.
The threat to resume missile testing as well as the prospect that the North may soon resume a nuclear weapons program could trigger a potentially destabilizing arms race across Northeast Asia, according to diplomats and arms control experts.
The actions by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may frighten Japan and South Korea into developing their own missile arsenals, the experts said. That in turn would provoke China to beef up its nuclear and missile strength.
Among the worst outcomes feared by the United States and its allies is the prospect that North Korea — a leading missile exporter — would expand into a new product line, distributing nuclear warheads to anyone willing to pay. "We see a country that is designing and selling its ballistic missiles around the world," said an American diplomat.
