Korea denies disclosing nuclear program to U.S.
URL:http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-01-12-nkorea_x.htm
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea denied Sunday it had ever confessed to pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program and threatened to let loose a "sea of fire" on the United States.
Over 1 million people turned out Saturday in Pyongyang to give support to N. Korea's withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
AP
But former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson said the rhetoric, while not helpful, appears to be a tactical move by Pyongyang aimed at securing direct negotiations with the United States.
Richardson, who met with a high-ranking North Korean delegation in New Mexico for nine hours over the weekend, called for dialogue between the two countries, beginning with low-level talks at the United Nations. He also suggested increased international pressure on North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons program.
Speaking Sunday on ABC's This Week, he suggested "a bilateral non-aggression binding pact that basically says ... we're not going to attack North Korea, in exchange for some of the steps that are needed."
The Bush administration has been fumbling to respond to North Korea's bizarre mix of threats and peace offerings. At first, it refused to talk to North Korea until the isolated Stalinist country dismantled the nuclear weapons program. Then it agreed to the talks in New Mexico. Saturday, as Richardson met with the North Koreans, the State Department said the talks failed to address "issues of concern" to the international community. State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said Pyongyang "continued to take steps in the wrong direction."
But if the White House won't offer carrots, it isn't threatening to use sticks either. South Korea and other regional powers oppose economic sanctions against the North. Pyongyang says sanctions would mean war. Now the Bush administration says it will "talk" but not "negotiate" with North Korea.
Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly arrived in Seoul on Sunday. He will meet Monday with South Korean President-elect Roh Moo Hyun and other top officials to discuss ways to end the confrontation over the North's nuclear weapons program.
At the center of the confrontation is an unanswered question: What does North Korea want? "Do they want some kind of guarantee by us economically?" Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Sunday on CNN. "Or are they just determined to have the nuclear option?"
The standoff began in October when Kelly announced after a meeting in Northern capital Pyongyang that North Korea had admitted to breaking a 1994 agreement and pursuing nuclear weapons. The United States countered by suspending fuel oil shipments to North Korea promised under the 1994 deal.
Since then, North Korea has been steadily raising the temperature. Officials in the capital, Pyongyang:
Threw international weapons inspectors out of a nuclear complex mothballed since 1994.
Withdrew on Friday from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Threatened on Saturday to resume ballistic missile tests and staged a bombastic anti-American rally in Pyongyang, reportedly attended by 1 million.
"The claim that we admitted developing nuclear weapons is an invention fabricated by the U.S. with sinister intentions," North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper charged on Sunday, according to the South Korean Yonhap news agency. "If the United States evades its responsibility and challenges us, we'll turn the citadel of imperialists into a sea of fire."
But the North also has signaled it wants a peaceful end to the crisis. North Korea wants assurances that President Bush won't launch an attack on a country he labeled part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq.
Contributing: Jim Drinkard in Washington, wire reports |
