Second North Korea Nuclear Test Could Follow Breakdown of Negotiations, U.S. General Says

If negotiations fail to put North Korea on the path of nuclear disarmament, the Stalinist state would probably detonate another atomic bomb, the U.S. military chief in South Korea said yesterday (see GSN, April 24).

“If the six-party talks do not produce a lasting settlement, the North Koreans will likely conduct a second and potentially additional nuclear tests when they see it as serving their purposes,” Gen. Burwell Bell said during a Senate hearing.

“Without a diplomatic settlement, Pyongyang’s plutonium production capability and its reported HEU (highly enriched uranium) program places it on track to become a moderate nuclear power, potentially by the end of the decade,” he added.

Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test in October, but it was seen as a very limited success due to the surprisingly small yield of the blast (Paul Eckert, Reuters/Yahoo!News, April 24).

North Korea has refused to begin meeting its commitments under a February denuclearization deal until it collects $25 million from Banco Delta Asia in Macau.  Bush administration officials sayss the money, which had been linked to illicit North Korean financial activities, is available.  Pyongyang, though, has not yet taken the funds for reasons that remain unclear, the Associated Press reported.

The regime is unfamiliar with the international banking system and should receive additional time to resolve the matter, Bell said (Foster Klug, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 24).

Pyongyang yesterday acknowledged difficulties in moving the money out of the bank in Macau, Agence France-Presse reported.

“There have been no results yet.  We have to see them,” Kim Myong Gil, deputy leader of the North Korean delegation to the United Nations, told the Yonhap News Agency.  “Transfer (to other banks) must become possible.”

Other banks are seemingly concerned about accepting funds that have been linked to counterfeiting and other illegal activity, AFP reported.  North Korea also wants complete access to the international financial system.

“There still exist various procedural matters to sort out and the efforts to resolve them are near the final stage,” said South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon.  “All the participants in the six-party talks are determined to implement the Feb. 13 agreements” (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, April 25).

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