North Korea Shows “Nuclear Deterrent” to the U.S. Delegation

“Although we already have a budget in place for the development of small-size nuclear warheads, we have repeatedly expressed our willingness to freeze our nuclear activities,” North Korean’s official Central Broadcasting System said in a report on the first anniversary of the North’s withdrawal from the Non-proliferation Treaty.

“The nuclear deterrent we showed the delegation today will help the U.S. drop its ambiguous view on the DPRK`s nuclear activities; it will serve as a substantial foundation for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the U.S. in the future,” the official Korean Central news Agency (KCNA) quoted a foreign ministry spokesman, referring to an official U.S. delegation of congressional aides and nuclear experts visiting the North.

“We expect a North Korean statement saying it will freeze its nuclear industry,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “If it scraps the program, the U.S. will be ready to talk about security assurances with North Korea.”

“[U.S.] officials who have received sketchy reports say the tour of [the delegation], was clearly intended to signal to the U.S. that officials in Washington should accept the fact that North Korea is an undeclared nuclear power,“ the New York Times reported, underscoring that the North-U.S. standoff will likely continue. “The tour signaled to the U.S. that President Bush`s efforts to dissuade North Korea from moving forward with its nuclear program had failed,“ quoted the NYT citing unnamed Bush administration officials.

China has promised North Korea $50 million in aid in order to lure Pyongyang to a six-nation talks aimed at ending the North`s nuclear weapons program, reported the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun on January 10. While on his visit of Pyongyang in October of last year, Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People`s Congress, promised aid in two batches, one after the second talk and the other after the sixth, Asahi reported.

In a related story, the two congressional delegates, one of them an aide of Richard G. Lugar, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, who has visited the North will arrive in the South on January 11 to meet with Wi Seong-rak, the North American division chief of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.