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North Korea Declares Nuclear Arsenal, Refuses to Resume Six-Party Negotiations
North Korea today for the first time publicly claimed that it possesses nuclear weapons and said it would not rejoin six-party talks aimed at reaching a settlement over its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 9). “We ... have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the D.P.R.K.,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The Bush administration termed the D.P.R.K., its dialogue partner, an outpost of tyranny,” the statement adds, using a phrase first employed by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her Senate confirmation hearings. “This deprived the D.P.R.K. of any justification to participate in the six-party talks” (Jack Kim, Reuters, Feb. 10). North Korea’s announcement is less than surprising, Rice indicated, saying Washington has assumed since the mid-1990s that Pyongyang could produce nuclear bombs. “We have for some time taken account of the capability of the North Koreans to perhaps have a few nuclear weapons,” Rice said. Rice reiterated that the United States had no intention of attacking North Korea. “The fact of the matter is that the world has given them a way out and they should take that way out,” she said (Sebastian Allison, Reuters, Feb. 10). Analysts said today that North Korea’s pronouncement does not necessarily mean it has a deployable nuclear weapons system. “It is one thing to talk about having a weapon and it’s a different matter to talk about a complete nuclear weapons system,” said researcher Baek Seung-joo of South Korea’s Institute for Defense Analyses. “It is questionable whether North Korea has the capability to mount a reliable nuclear warhead.” Others noted that none of Pyongyang’s alleged nuclear capabilities was confirmed by concrete evidence. “Most people in the field assume that North Korea can deliver a simple, implosion weapon by missile with a range that could hit Tokyo,” said Gary Samore, director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the United Kingdom, adding that no one on the outside could be certain that North Korea had actually produced nuclear weapons. “They want us to believe that they are capable of it,” he said (Jack Kim, Reuters II, Feb. 10).
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