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North Korea: Pyongyang Says It Plans to Assemble Nuclear Weapons Soon North Korean officials last week told the United States that North Korea has reprocessed enough uranium to build a half-dozen nuclear weapons and that it intends to take that step soon, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, July 14). U.S. intelligence agencies are now trying to determine if Pyongyang is telling the truth. “It’s the mirror image of the Iraq problem,” said one U.S. official. “We spent years looking for evidence Iraq was lying when it said it didn’t have a nuclear program. Now North Korea says it’s about to go nuclear, and everyone is trying to figure out whether they’ve finally done it, or if it’s the big lie,” the official added (David Sanger, New York Times, July 15). Some experts have expressed doubts about the nuclear claims. “It could be done if (the North Koreans) used shortcuts and wanted to risk (nuclear) contamination,” said a former U.N. weapons inspector who has visited North Korea (Stewart Stogel, Washington Times, July 15). A U.S. envoy met in New York with North Korean U.N. representative Park Gil Yon last week, according to a State Department official. The official would not comment, however, on the nature of their discussions (Agence France-Presse, July 15). Naval Blockade Is War, Pyongyang Says North Korea, meanwhile, said that a proposed naval blockade of the communist country would be tantamount to a declaration of war. “If the United States expands the sea blockade to include international waters, it would become a prelude to war,” said the state-run North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun (Yonhap News Agency/Korea Times, July 15). Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, however, dismissed the threat of a North Korean nuclear attack. Self-proclaimed North Korean spokesman Kim Myong Chol said Australia might be attacked if it takes part in the effort to interdict North Korean ships. “If Australia becomes part of American manipulation against North Korea, North Korea reserves the right to strike back on Australia — that is the official North Korean position,” Kim said. However, Downer said North Korea does not have the capability to hit Australia with nuclear missiles. “We don’t believe for a minute North Korea would launch some kind of nuclear attack against Australia, or have the capacity to fire nuclear missiles that sort of distance. That’s if they have the capacity to fire nuclear missiles at all,” he said (Jack Taylor, Agence France-Presse, July 15). Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, meanwhile, warned that the Korean crisis is drifting toward war. Six months ago, Perry said the situation was manageable, but it has deteriorated since then, he said. “I think we are losing control,” Perry said. “I have held off public criticism to this point because I had hoped that the administration was going to act on this problem, and that public criticism might be counterproductive. But time is running out, and each month the problem gets more dangerous,” he added (Ricks/Kessler, Washington Post, July 15). China Reaches Out to North Korea Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il Monday, the Associated Press reported. The two “had an in-depth exchanges of views on the nuclear issue between (North Korea) and the U.S. and international issues of mutual concern,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said (Jae-suk Yoo, Associated Press/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 15).
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