UNITED NATIONS (AP) - North Korea says it has turned the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent against increasing U.S. nuclear threats and to prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia.
Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula ``is snowballing,'' Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon provided details Monday of the nuclear deterrent that he said North Korea has developed for self-defense.
He told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that Pyongyang had ``no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent'' because of U.S. policies that he claimed were designed to ``eliminate'' North Korea and make it ``a target of preemptive nuclear strikes.''
``Our deterrent is, in all its intents and purposes, the self-defensive means to cope with the ever increasing U.S. nuclear threats and further, prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia,'' he told a news conference after his speech.
In Washington, a State Department official noted that Secretary of State Colin Powell has said repeatedly that the United States has no plans to attack the communist country.
But in his General Assembly speech and at the press conference with a small group of reporters, Choe blamed the United States for intensifying threats to attack the communist nation and destroying the basis for negotiations to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Nonetheless, he said, North Korea is still ready to dismantle its nuclear program if Washington abandons its ``hostile policy'' and is prepared to coexist peacefully.
At the moment, however, he said ``the ever intensifying U.S. hostile policy and the clandestine nuclear-related experiments recently revealed in South Korea are constituting big stumbling blocks'' and make it impossible for North Korea to participate in the continuation of six-nation talks on its nuclear program.
North Korea said earlier this year that it had reprocessed the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and was increasing its ``nuclear deterrent'' but did not provide any details.
Choe was asked at the news conference what was included in the nuclear deterrent.
``We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms,'' he said, without elaborating on the kinds or numbers.
When asked if the fuel had been turned into actual weapons, not just weapons-grade material, Choe said, ``We declared that we weaponized this.''
South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said in late April that it was estimated that eight nuclear bombs could be made if all 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods were reprocessed. Before the reprocessing, South Korea said it believed the North had enough nuclear material to build one or two nuclear bombs.
The State Department official said he hadn't seen Choe's comments but noted that the Bush administration has long believed that North Korea has at least one or two nuclear weapons. The official, asking not to be identified, said the North Koreans also have made a number of conflicting statements about how far along their weapons development programs have come.
The crisis erupted in 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear weapons program. The United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia since have held three rounds of talks on curbing the North's nuclear ambitions, but have produced no breakthroughs.
``If the six-party talks are to be resumed, the basis for the talks demolished by the United States should be properly set up and the truth of the secret nuclear experiments in South Korea clarified completely,'' Choe told the General Assembly.
South Korea disclosed recently that its scientists conducted a plutonium-based nuclear experiment more than 20 years ago and a uranium-enrichment experiment in 2000. It denied having any weapons ambitions, and an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency is under way.
Choe told the press conference that North Korea wants an explanation because Pyongyang believes it is impossible that such experiments took place ``without U.S. technology and U.S. approval.''
He also accused President George W. Bush's administration of being ``dead set against'' reconciliation between North and South Korea, and of adopting an ``extremely undisguised ... hostile policy'' toward the country after it came to power in early 2001.
``As it becomes clear that the U.S. has been pursuing the aim to stifle the DPRK by military means, so our determination to build up a powerful deterrent becomes resolute more and more,'' Choe said, using the initials of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
At the third round of six-party talks in June, the United States proposed that the North disclose all its nuclear activities, help to dismantle facilities and allow outside monitoring. Under the plan, some benefits would be withheld to ensure the North cooperates.
But North Korea said it would never scrap its nuclear programs first and wait to get rewarded later. Instead, it insisted on ``reward for freeze.''
Choe said a freeze would be ``the first step toward eventual dismantlement of our nuclear program'' - and that Pyongyang had intended ``to include in the freeze no more manufacturing of nuclear weapons, and no test and transfer of them.''
A freeze would be followed by ``objective verification,'' he said.
Another is - they're doing it as a bargaining chip to force their more economically sound neighbors to provide them with the essentials North Korea has been neglecting for years.
quote:He told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that Pyongyang had ``no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent'' because of U.S. policies that he claimed were designed to ``eliminate'' North Korea and make it ``a target of preemptive nuclear strikes.''
North Korea leadership is totally insane... *sigh* Kind of in that embarrasing, please don't come over you'll embarras the family, way. For being the so called hidden kingdom they sure are desperate to have the world pay attention to them...
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I think it's good that we have ties with N. Korea's close neighbors who also don't want them to have nuclear weapons.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: Choe told the press conference that North Korea wants an explanation because Pyongyang believes it is impossible that such experiments took place ``without U.S. technology and U.S. approval.''
And yet they think they can come up with it on their own without us?
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
We came out and told the world they were developing nukes and that we think it's a bad idea that they have them and that their neighbors should do something about that.
Basically, we caught them with their hand in the cookie jar and pointed it out to everyone:
"Hey N.Korea is trying to steal cookies when they said they wouldn't as long as we gave them aid!"
Like the petulent child who gets caught, they are blaming the ones that caught them instead of admitting they were wrong.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
1. We called North Korea evil 2. We have recently invaded another sovereign nation because we considered their government evil 3. We have said our policy of unprovoked, preemptive invasions of anti-democratic "threats" will continue
How did we THINK they were going to react? How would we react, for that matter? Given these three facts I don't see how anyone could realisticly deny the danger we posed to the North Korean government.
If we hope to avoid the same thing happening in other "rogue" nations, we had best change our policies soon. As long as one nation is threatening all those it doesn't like, every other nation is going to have to arm themselves in self-defense, lest they be next on the list. We may not like this reality, but it's the reality we create when we decide we should have the unilateral right to destroy whoever we choose.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I agree somewhat,Tres, except that all three items on the list are from the Bush 2001-present administration, while the N. Korean weapons program predates this. The recent statements by the N. Koreans amounts to using the US administration's policies as an excuse for a weapons program already underway.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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As far as the "Axis of Evil" list from a Bush state of the union speech, I think Syria and Libya were called evil. Libya has ostensibly disarmed, Syria has had little public reaction, and N. Korea publicly acknowledges having the bomb.
So, between speeches and invasions, we scared Col. Quadaffi into disarming, but pushed the N. Koreans into a corner which they don't want to come out of without a publicly known nuke in their pocket. A mixed result at best.
[edit to add: publicly known] [edit: I knew I should have googled "Axis of Evil", but I was in a hurry as my hour was almost up.
posted
When the N. Koreans fired up that reactor a couple of years ago they assured us that they were doing it because they needed the electricity.
By the way, who helped N. Korea build that little reactor? Who sold them the spent nuclear fuel rods?
Who will probably hand them ICBM technology on a silver platter when they're ready?
You might ask yourself why the behind-the-scenes leaders of this country want China and N. Korea to have ICBM nuke capability.
If you think the N. Korean regime is crazy, just look at the military industrial complex that is pulling the strings in this country.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:...Intercontinental Ballistic Missile targeting accuracy-with atmospheric research. Last year the Clinton Administration was prepared to share this type of information with China...
Of course, five years later, it's a done deal, and the Chinese are ready to put people in space and launch ICBMs using our trajectory modeling.
quote:After World War II, Japan left behind uranium mining and milling operations in the mountains of northern Korea--the remains of its own secret nuclear program. The Koreans quickly put that equipment to use, exporting uranium to the Soviet Union.
From the IAEA (I don't know who these guys are or whom they answer to, but they won't be on the ballot in November):
quote:owes much to the work of several North Korean diplomats, including Choi Hak Geun. Posted to IAEA's Vienna headquarters from 1974 to 1978, he scoured the agency's library and other open-source material for nuclear know-how.
And currently from Pakistan:
quote:None other than the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, reached out to Pyongyang in 1993, according to a Western diplomatic source in Islamabad. The Pakistani physicist needed a delivery system for the arsenal he was creating, and the North Koreans had just what he was looking for.
posted
So the IAEA helped nuclear proliferation!? That's just priceless, sad and hilarious at the same time. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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That's what I thought. From my very limited knowledge on the situation, I thought that N.Korea was able to obtain their nuclear program by feigning a humanitarian need for the energy. Then they turned around and made bombs with the spent rods.
And I don't think the US has been hostile at all towards N. Korea since the peace signings. We are content to live and let live.
In all honesty I think it's a matter of: The US supports the Democratic South and it FLOURISHES, while they struggle in the North with their Communism.
It's a classic "It's not our system that sucks, it's that the US is keeping us from being successful by forcing us to be a divided nation."
If they decided tomorrow to become a democracy and then try the "Unified Germany" thing, I think we'd have no problem with it.
That's where the problem comes in.
They want to be communist AND receive aid.
Basically they want to deny humanity (human rights) to their people, but demand it from the world.
There have been quite a few documentaries on N. Korea and the problems they face.
I remember one where a family was living in a dirt cave with their last child (the others had to be given up to an orphanage) who was 5,6,or 7 and smoked (that's a whole other issue). They ended up giving him up to the orphanage.
posted
The article about N. Korea and the bomb says that the U.S. anadvertently helped N. Korea by introducing educational reform in South Korea after the Korean war. The reforms de-emphasized the science curriculum, thus driving scientists from the south to N. Korea:
quote:"By the time the Korean War ended," Kim says, "about 80 scientists, or roughly 40 percent of all science graduates in the South, had defected to the North."
Anyway, what is this international agency that determines who has the bomb and who doesn't. Who appoints the leaders of this agency and who bankrolls them? Whom do they answer to? What is their agenda?
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Their agenda appears to be reassuring the international community that all is well:
quote:Q: Dr. ElBaradei, do you think that November should be the end of the process for Iran?
A: Well, I never set any deadline. It depends on co-operation. It depends on the kind of co-operation we get from Iran, the kind of co-operation we get from other Member States, which is also indispensable to our ability to understand some of the issues. So, it is an open process and we finish when I believe that we are finished.
Afternoon Statement
I reported on the state of play of the different issues before the Board. On Libya we have made good advances in our verification of the Libyan programme and we have reached a point where additional activities will be looked at as part of our routine verification activities.
With regard to the Republic of Korea, I reported on the new information that came to our knowledge that there was enrichment activity at the experimental level in 2000, and that there was also some separation of plutonium in the early 80s. We obviously have sent a team to Seoul upon ROK informing us of these activities. We still have a lot of work to do. We are getting active co-operation by the Republic of Korea and I hope that co-operation will continue. I will be in a position in November to give a full written report on these activities, including its nature and scope. And hopefully be able by that time to assure the international community that these activities are isolated activities and that all measures have been taken to ensure their non-recurrence. Clearly, any activities that involve separation of plutonium or enriching of uranium are matters of serious concern from a proliferation perspective and therefore we are going to treat them with the seriousness they deserve.
What a load of hud! This guy is the double-speak champion of the world!
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:all measures have been taken to ensure their non-recurrence
Funny, I don't recall nuking the N. Koreans into oblivion. Clearly the Director General is mistaken when he says "ALL measures have been taken."
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
First we got the bomb, and that was good 'Cause we love peace and motherhood. Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay 'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Does anyone else think it likely that they're would have been a land war in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact at some point in the last 55 years if there were no nuclear weapons in the world?
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Nearly all Warsaw Pact operational plans were offensively based, they had numerical superiority, and they felt threatened by the west.
But if there were no atomic weapons? Russia would have attacked Japan, in support of the other allies. The Pacific war would ahve gone on a good while longer, and the west might have had a chance to repair relations with Russia.
Historical hypotheticals are so damned difficult and complicated.
Let's say there *was* a land war.
Still better than the inevitble nuclear war that will wipe us out, even if it isn't for another ten generations.
We're screwed, folks. The clock is ticking.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Actually, the Soviets did the same math NATO did - any overt hostility on either side will result in everyone losing.
Which, as Dag points out, kept the Warsaw Pact forces from overwhelming Europe en masse and it kept NATO from launching any kind of military action on it's own initiative in fear of the same retaliatory strike.
The problem we are seeing - still developing nations see nukes as a means of greater world power and influence. And they are more or less correct.
The problem then becomes the nations just starting to acquire nuclear technology may not be as inclined to believe in the 'no win' scenario and seek to push their luck.
India and Pakistan are two such countries - as soon as they acquired nuclear weapons, the balance of power was etched in a stalemate. And so far, both sides seem to acknowledge even a limited nuclear exchange would result in, at best, a Pyrrhic victory.
North Korea is a prime example - right now, they are pushing their nuclear program as a means of leveraging concessions involving food and aid to support their crumbling infrastructure. If we don't engage in such talks and they do actually have nukes, the government may become so unstable that they have nothing to lose by gambling everything in one toss of the nuclear dice.
posted
I mentioned ICBMs, but actually there are probably enough mini nukes already placed in strategic positions around the world to get the job done:
quote:The colonel admitted he had no knowledge any devices had actually been smuggled into the US, but said `it was possible,' because many of the weapons had disappeared from Russia's inventory. Meaning the mini-nukes are either missing - and possibly in the hands of terrorists - or secreted in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
The Soviet mini-nukes, described as the size of a golf club bag, were designed to destroy vital targets, such as military command and control centers, air defense headquarters, missile bases, communications nodes, power stations, bridges, dams, airports, and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The U.S. could be producing similar mini-nukes, and we'd never know it.
Who knows, maybe when we accuse the N. Koreans of having nuclear weapons, we snicker and whisper: "yeah, they're OUR nuclear weapons, and you're sitting on one right now."
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I knew I should have googled "Axis of Evil", but I was in a hurry as my hour was almost up.![[Evil Laugh]](graemlins/evillaugh.gif)
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