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North Korea Plans to Move Ahead With Nuclear Program
North Korea vowed to push ahead with development of its nuclear deterrent in the midst of efforts to resolve the atomic standoff on the Korean peninsula, a U.S. researcher said Saturday after meeting with officials in Pyongyang (see GSN, April 23). “[President George W. Bush] may be trying to gain time, but time is not on his side,” Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy in Washington quoted Kim Yong-nam, president of the presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly and North Korea’s second in command, as saying. “We are going to use this time 100 percent effectively to strengthen our nuclear deterrent, quantitatively and qualitatively,” Kim reportedly said. In response to allegations by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney that North Korea could transfer nuclear technology to terrorists, Kim said North Korean policy supports missile sales but stops short of allowing nuclear sales. “There can be trade in missiles but in regard to nuclear material our policy, past, present and future, is that we would never allow such a transfer to al-Qaeda or anyone else,” Harrison quoted Kim as saying (Reuters/Yahoo!News, April 24). Meanwhile China said North Korea is opening up and that it wants to be a nuclear-free country, the Associated Press reported. Wang Guangya, China’s United Nations ambassador, said Saturday that he hopes the North “will move in the right direction.” Of the six-party nuclear talks, Wang said, “We tried to convince them that this is the best way to find a solution for this issue.” “I think that they are being convinced, and they agreed that they will continue,” said Wang. “And they also pronounced that their final objective is to be a nuclear-free country. They don’t like to have nuclear weapons,” he added (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Charlotte Observer, April 24).
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