In a direct conversation in Beijing on Wednesday, North Korea threatened to export nuclear weapons if the United States does not restore its former commitment to provide energy to the isolated communist nation, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, April 24).

North Korea issued its threat Wednesday, the opening day of a series of talks between U.S., North Korean and Chinese officials, U.S. officials said.  North Korean envoy Li Gun pulled aside his U.S. counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, and told him North Korea possessed nuclear weapons.

“We can’t dismantle them,” Li told Kelly.  “It’s up to you whether we do a physical demonstration or transfer them,” Li said.

U.S. officials are still assessing precisely what Li meant by his remarks, including whether they were a threat to conduct an actual test, according to the Washington Post.  Whatever Li’s statement might have meant, “it was very fast, very categorical and obviously very scripted,” a senior official said.

During a formal session of the talks, Li also said that North Korea was close to completing the reprocessing of 8,000 spent fuel rods that were being stored at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.  U.S. intelligence analysts, however, have not been able to confirm the claim, the Post reported.  During the talks, Kelly tried to press Li to confirm that he truly meant to say that North Korea had finished reprocessing the spent fuel rods, because North Korean officials have previously made contradictory statements on the issue.

Negotiating Positions

North Korea presented what was described as an extensive proposal for ending the nuclear crisis, the Post reported.  In the proposal, North Korea wanted to re-establish the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which it agreed to end its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid, but it would only end its nuclear program once the United States has fulfilled its side of the agreement.  The U.S. delegation, however, said North Korea must verifiably dismantle its nuclear program before other U.S.-North Korean issues could be addressed, the Post reported.

Yesterday, the second day in the planned three-day talks, the parties never met in a three-way discussion.  Instead, Chinese officials held separate meetings with the U.S. and North Korean delegations, according to the Post.  Today, the United States and North Korea again held separate meetings with the Chinese delegation and then a “brief informal trilateral meeting” was held before Kelly left for Seoul and Tokyo.

Chinese Reaction

Privately, Chinese officials were “in disbelief over Li Gun’s categorical statements,” a U.S. official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 25).

Publicly, however, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said the meeting “signifies a good beginning.”

All three countries have “agreed to maintain contacts through diplomatic channels regarding continuing the process of talks,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, April 25).

Bush Reacts

U.S. President George W. Bush dismissed North Korea’s claims yesterday, saying Pyongyang was “back to the old blackmail game” and that the United States would not be intimidated.

“This will give us an opportunity to say to the North Koreans and the world we’re not going to be threatened,” Bush said.

It is unknown if Li’s claims that North Korea possessed nuclear weapons referred to the one or two bombs U.S. intelligence agencies have believed North Korea has possessed for 10 years, or if Li’s claim was an overstatement of North Korea’s nuclear capability in an attempt to deter the United States from attacking its nuclear sites, according to the New York Times.

The CIA believes that North Korea probably reprocessed enough material before the Agreed Framework to build up to two nuclear weapons, the Times reported.  There has only been unclear evidence to back such a belief, however, such as an assessment of North Korea’s technical capability and what one former senior intelligence official described as “a good deal of supposition.”

“The only surprise here was that they admitted it,” a senior Bush administration official said.  “That fact itself is hardly new,” the official added (David Sanger, New York Times, April 25).

Some Question North Korea’s Claims

South Korean and Japanese experts today said they doubted North Korea’s weapon possession and reprocessing claims.

South Korean nuclear analyst Kang Jungmin said he doubted that North Korea was close to completing the reprocessing of its spent fuel rod supply, noting that the heat generated by reprocessing would be easily detected by U.S. satellites.

“It’s a sheer lie.  There is no sign whatsoever that North Korea has restarted its reprocessing facility,” Kang said.  “Even if it has restarted its facility, it would take them four or five months to complete the reprocessing,” Kang added.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, professor of international relations at Takushoku University in Japan, said he did not believe North Korea possessed nuclear weapons.

“North Korea believes the U.S. was able to invade Iraq because Iraq didn’t have nuclear weapons, so it is saying it has nuclear weapons,” Shigemura said (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 25).

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