SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea called for a nonaggression treaty earlier Friday with the U.S. that would guarantee the sovereignty of the communist state in return for addressing U.S. concerns about its nuclear-weapons program.
The statement followed revelations last week that North Korea admitted having a nuclear-weapons program. Earlier this week, Pyongyang officials told South Korean counterparts they wanted nuclear-arms talks with the U.S., "provided Washington stopped treating it as an enemy."
It wasn't clear whether the North Korean offer would ease a standoff with Washington over Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program. The North's announcement appears to demand a new pact with the U.S. that goes beyond the 1994 Agreed Framework. Under that agreement, North Korea pledged to stop building and operating nuclear reactors suspected of being a part of a weapons program, in exchange for donations of fuel and help in building two nuclear reactors that were less likely to be able to provide materials for weapons.
In addition, the North expected the pact to deliver progress in demilitarizing the Korean peninsula, where the U.S. keeps about 300,000 troops. But the North's development of nuclear arms has abrogated the accord in Washington's eyes, and Pyongyang has declared the deal void.
Earlier Friday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. of breaking the 1994 agreement and said it wanted a removal of the "threat" to its existence, an apparent reference to the U.S. forces in South Korea.
"The settlement of all problems with the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea [North Korea], a small country, should be based on removing any threat to its sovereignty and right to existence," the ministry said in a statement carried by North Korea's news agency and reported on South Korean television. "The DPRK considers that it is a reasonable and realistic solution to the nuclear issue to conclude a nonaggression treaty between [North Korea] and the U.S. if the grave situation of the Korean peninsula is to be bridged over."
As well as a gradual reduction in the U.S. presence in South Korea, Pyongyang also had hoped for dividends in removing barriers to trade and investment in North Korea.
Analysts in Seoul say they think the lack of such progress was what soured Pyongyang on the agreement. "It was a comprehensive framework, and they had to solve a lot of issues," Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea specialist at Seoul's Dongkuk University, told YTN television in Seoul. "That's why the North Koreans want to form a new pact."
President Bush is scheduled to meet with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos this weekend with the aim of coordinating a response to Pyongyang's latest overture.
-- Seah Park contributed to this article.
U.S. Is Set to Use APEC To Pressure North Korea JEANNE CUMMINGS / Wall Street Journal 23oct02
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is continuing diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons program, hoping to use this weekend's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to build international pressure on Pyongyang.
The White House isn't yet pushing allies to agree to economic sanctions if North Korea refuses to demonstrate "in a visible and verifiable way" that it is dismantling its weapons program. Instead, it is waiting to see how North Korea responds before raising the pressure, which could include ending the fuel and economic aid Pyongyang is receiving in exchange for a 1994 promise to abandon its nuclear-weapons program.
"We believe very strongly that it is important that the whole international community band together and let the North Koreans know that this program is unacceptable," said one administration official.
So far, the North Koreans are showing few signs of contrition. On Tuesday, talks between South Korea and North Korea broke down as Pyongyang threatened unspecified "tougher counteraction" if the U.S. didn't withdraw from its "hostile" posture and agree to negotiate over dismantling the weapons program. The White House rejected those demands.
The twin threats of North Korea and Iraq will be on the agenda Saturday when Mr. Bush meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the APEC meeting in Mexico. The discussion could prove tricky because U.S. officials have said North Korea purchased materials for its weapons program from Russian suppliers.
Russia and the U.S. also are still wrangling over the wording of a new United Nations resolution calling for disarming Iraq. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said "the American draft resolution ... does not, for the moment, meet" Russia's criteria. Moscow is eager to avoid a war with Iraq, and wants to make sure the resolution doesn't authorize U.S. military action at the first sign of an Iraqi violation. One U.N. diplomat said the Russians were now bargaining about the language in the resolution, but were unlikely to block its passage.
To protect that momentum, the White House chose not to confront Moscow with evidence of Russian involvement in North Korea's weapons program -- transactions that Washington says the Putin government may not have known about.
After meetings with Russia's foreign ministry Tuesday, an American diplomat said the Russians "concur that what the North Koreans are doing in the uranium enrichment field amounts to a clear violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."
-- Jeanne Whalen in Moscow contributed to this article.
North Korea Ready for Arms Talks; Washington Is Cool to the Overture SEBASTIAN MOFFETT / Wall Street Journal 21oct02
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea, apparently seeking diplomatic dividends rather than repercussions for its recently disclosed nuclear-weapons program, said it wants nuclear-arms talks with the U.S., "provided Washington stopped treating it as an enemy."
The White House, however, appeared unmoved by North Korea's overture. President Bush, commenting for the first time, said North Korea's admission is a "troubling discovery" and that the U.S. hopes to work with China, Japan, South Korea and Russia to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "he wants to disarm." Mr. Bush made clear that the U.S. doesn't want to get ahead of its regional allies on this issue. "The people who have got the most at stake, of course, in this posture are the people who are his neighbors," he said.
North Korea's statement Monday, by its ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong Nam, offered some insight into why the Communist country admitted to having a nuclear-weapons program. Analysts in the South say North Korea's admission of its nuclear program was an unusual method of getting the U.S. to negotiate, because improved relations are necessary to secure the large amounts of aid and investment North Korea needs to survive its chronic economic problems.
North Korea "attempted to develop nuclear weapons to attract attention from the U.S. to get it to talk," said Suh Jae Jean, director of the Korean Institute for National Unification. "But there is no evidence that they have completed a weapon. Their strategy is completely different from 10 years ago, when they tried to use brinkmanship. Now they realize brinkmanship does not work."
With tensions over a possible war with Iraq already straining U.S. relations with allies, the White House is taking a cautious approach in dealing with North Korea. In the past, the administration has taken a hard line, with President Bush including the country earlier this year with Iran and Iraq in an "axis of evil."
White House advisers are working behind the scenes to map out a diplomatic response that can be embraced by the U.S. and its allies in time for the president's long-scheduled meeting Friday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Crawford, Texas. On Saturday, Mr. Bush will sit down with leaders of Japan, South Korea and Russia during the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Mexico. "This is a chance for people who love freedom and peace to work together to deal with an emerging threat," Mr. Bush said.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that Washington now considered the 1994 Agreed Framework pact with North Korea on nuclear weapons effectively dead. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday that North Korea "informed us" that they had nullified the agreement. "We will continue to consult, but North Korea has made it plain that as far as they're concerned, it's a nullified agreement." Under the pact, North Korea pledged to stop building and operating nuclear reactors suspected of being a part of a weapons program, in exchange for donations of fuel and help in building two different types of nuclear reactors.
Monday, according to South Korean news pool reports, North Korea's Kim Yong Nam told the chief South Korean delegate, Jeong Se Hyun: "If the United States is willing to withdraw its hostile policy toward the North, the North also is ready to resolve security concerns through dialogue."
North Korea's desire to engage the U.S. was evident last month in Pyongyang. As North Korean officials unveiled new policies to attempt to kick start their moribund economy, they also conceded to visiting reporters that little could be achieved without Washington's support. Everyone from factory managers to Foreign Ministry officials to schoolteachers seemed to have the same message: It's time to bring the Cold War to an end.
-- Jeanne Cummings and Jay Solomon contributed to this article.
U.S. Officials Say Pakistan Aided North Korea Program CARLA ANNE ROBBINS and ZAHID HUSSAIN / Wall Street Journal 21oct02
Intelligence Appears to Show Source of Nuclear Expertise
North Korea was able to pursue its clandestine nuclear-weapons program by acquiring critical parts from Russian suppliers in recent years, while Pakistani scientists appear to have previously provided important nuclear designs and expertise, a senior U.S. official said.
Senior Pakistani officials said they moved to stop their scientists from aiding the North Koreans, firing the head of the country's uranium-enrichment and ballistic-missile programs in 2000 after the U.S. raised suspicions that Pakistan traded nuclear know-how for North Korean ballistic-missile technology.
But North Korea continued to shop for needed equipment in Russia and other countries, according to U.S. officials.
The U.S. has intelligence that suggests Russian suppliers sold specialty metals, valves, pumps and other hardware to run gas centrifuges used to produce highly enriched uranium needed to make nuclear weapons. Several U.S. officials said they have no proof of the Russian government's involvement in these transactions or that it was even aware of them, but added that they couldn't rule it out.
A U.S. official said that indications of Russian suppliers' helping the North Koreans were among the tips Washington had of Pygongyang's nuclear-weapons development efforts. A spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry, however, forcefully denied his country's involvement.
"This has absolutely nothing to do with reality," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko.
The Pakistani connection is seen in the type of centrifuge program North Korea has been working on, a model that U.S. intelligence suspects is "consistent with what the Pakistanis did 15 years ago," according to the U.S. official. From that fact, U.S. intelligence analysts have surmised that Pakistani scientists have provided essential technical advice to Pygongyang on the program.
The Bush administration is eager to avoid a public confrontation with Moscow or Islamabad over the North Korean nuclear program. Pakistan has become an important ally of the U.S. campaign against terrorism, while the Russians are a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, where the U.S. is pushing for a new resolution to disarm Iraq, which also is suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction.
Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who oversees nonproliferation issues, travels to Moscow this week to enlist Russia's support in pressuring North Korea to shut down the program.
The U.S. long has known that North Korea has provided Pakistan with missiles, and analysts now assume that the Pakistanis may have been paying for those missiles in part with expertise on enriching uranium.
Senior Pakistani officials said they moved to cut off cooperation in 2000, when the government disciplined a principal scientist behind Pakistan's nuclear program. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, was removed from the nation's uranium-enrichment and ballistic-missile programs, these officials said.
Dr. Khan, who currently holds the title of adviser to the president, couldn't be reached for comment.
During the weekend, Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, called reports of his nation's nuclear cooperation with North Korea "absolutely baseless." Pakistan's information minister, Nisar Memon, said, "Pakistan has never indulged in such kind of activity."
Dr. Khan founded and headed Khan Research Laboratories, Pakistan's premier uranium-enrichment plant, and the country's ballistic-missile program, which experts say used North Korean technology. The flamboyant nuclear scientist, who is 62 years old, is regarded as a national hero for his role in developing Pakistan's uranium-based nuclear bomb during the 1980s. Some experts said Dr. Khan bought and bartered to obtain most of the technology, as Pakistan sought to maintain a semblance of military parity with India, which detonated a nuclear weapon in the 1970s.
Since the Sept. 11 hijack attacks in the U.S., the Bush administration has been especially concerned that Pakistani nuclear scientists were passing on their expertise to the al Qaeda terrorist network. Last October, Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed that danger with Gen. Musharraf on a visit to Pakistan, according to U.S officials. At the time, the U.S. had identified four Pakistani nuclear experts with links to Afghanistan's Taliban regime and al Qaeda.
The U.S. first raised the issue of North Korean support for Pakistan's ballistic-missile program in 1998, when Pakistan successfully test fired the Ghauri-1 missile, which can carry a 1,500-pound payload 700 miles. The following year, Pakistan fired the Ghauri II, which was capable of carrying a nuclear payload further into Indian territory. U.S. concern was particularly piqued by evidence that Khan Research Laboratories developed both Ghauri missiles based on North Korea's Nodong missile. The missile cooperation began in the mid-1990s after a visit to North Korea by Pakistan's then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Gen. Musharraf assured the U.S. that he broke off missile cooperation with North Korea, but the Bush administration wasn't fully convinced, the Pakistani officials said.
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