U.S. Received Nuclear List, North Korea Says

North Korea said today that it provided the United States with a list of its nuclear programs in November, disputing claims that it has missed the Dec. 31 deadline, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 3).

“As far as the nuclear declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is concerned, (North Korea) has done what it should do,” the Foreign Ministry said in a prepared statement.

The United States has yet to receive the complete nuclear list promised by Pyongyang, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

“They’re engaging the international media, in their own way,”  he said.  “It is an important point that in one of this have any of the parties been backing away at all from their commitment to the process.”

Pyongyang in October pledged by the end of the year to release a full declaration of its nuclear programs and to disable three key facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.  Officials from other nations in the six-party talks — China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States — said neither project was finished by the time Jan. 1 arrived.

The other nations have not met their obligations under the continuing denuclearization process, Pyongyang said, including providing energy assistance and taking North Korea off U.S. terrorism sponsorship and sanctions lists.  In response, North Korea had to “adjust the tempo of the disablement of some nuclear facilities on the principle of action for action,” according to the statement.

Disablement is expected to be complete within 100 days, after spent fuel rods are removed from North Korea’s only operational nuclear reactor, the Foreign Ministry said.

The statement also addressed a main sticking point for the declaration — U.S. suspicions that North Korea has operated a uranium enrichment program alongside its known plutonium activities.  Pyongyang provided the United States with samples of aluminum tubing to prove “they had nothing to do with the uranium enrichment” and has allowed U.S. officials to see military sites that employ the tubes, according to the Foreign Ministry (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2007).

McCormack declined to discuss the uranium claim, AP reported.

Addressing reports that North Korea was helping Syria build a suspected nuclear facility destroyed in a September Israeli air raid, the statement said the Stalinist state had agreed in October that it would not export nuclear material, equipment or expertise (see GSN, Oct. 10, 2007).

The denuclearization plan can move ahead, Pyongyang said, “should all participating nations make concerted sincere efforts on the principle of simultaneous action” (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Jan. 4).

North Korea also today threatened to boost its “war deterrent,” a term referring to its nuclear arsenal, AP reported.

“Our republic will continue to harden its war deterrent in response to the U.S. stepping up its nuclear war moves,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press II/Washington Post, Jan. 4).

The U.S. State Department indicated yesterday that it was still waiting for the North Korean nuclear declaration, Agence France-Presse reported.  The list should be submitted “as soon as possible but also they should not sacrifice completeness for speed, completeness and accuracy for speed,” said spokesman Sean McCormack.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is scheduled to visit Japan, South Korea, China and Russia next week for talks on the North Korea nuclear issue.  The top U.S. envoy to the six-party talks is not expected to travel to North Korea or to meet with North Korean officials, McCormack said (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Jan. 3).

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