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U.S. Asks China to Pressure North Korea on Nuclear Program, Presents Evidence on Uranium Sales
U.S. President George W. Bush sent an envoy to China last week to urge President Hu Jintao to intensify diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang to relinquish its nuclear ambitions, in the wake of findings that North Korea was the probable source of uranium that ended up in Libya’s now-defunct nuclear program, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 7). National Security Council official Michael Green delivered a letter from Bush to Hu that “was written to underscore the greatly heightened urgency” of the problem, said a U.S. official. Chinese officials in turn promised to send a delegation to Pyongyang later this month, while discouraging Bush from making public pronouncements about the North Korean situation, Asian officials said. Bush made only a brief reference to the nuclear standoff in last week’s State of the Union address. “The Chinese advised that we not demonstrate to the North how anxious everyone is about this,” said one senior Asian diplomat involved in the six-party talks with North Korea. “But the Chinese also seemed surprised by the quality of the scientific evidence.” The new intelligence is the first concrete evidence that Pyongyang, in addition to possibly developing nuclear weapons with enriched uranium, may have sold processed uranium to other countries, the Times reported. Washington wants to make sure China remains on its side of the issue if the talks fail, one North Korea expert said. “This is part of a strategy by the Bush administration to get China much more active on an issue that the administration has struggled with, and recognizes is now going on to the front burner,” said Kurt Campbell of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Sanger/Broad, New York Times, Feb. 9).
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