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Plutonium several more nuclear weapons Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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N. Korea raises stakes ahead of talks
MSNBC News Services
North Korea said Friday that it was "successfully reprocessing" 8,000 spent fuel rods, which would give the Pyongyang regime enough plutonium for several nuclear weapons. The announcement, only days before the United States was expected to hold talks with North Korean officials in Beijing, made notable mention of Washington's war to oust Saddam Hussein. In the past, North Korea has accused the United States of planning to invade once the war in Iraq is over.
""THE IRAQI WAR teaches a lesson that in order to prevent a war and defend the security of a country and the sovereignty of a nation it is necessary to have a powerful physical deterrent force only," the statement said, citing a foreign ministry spokesman.
"As we have already declared, we are successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase, as we sent interim information to the U.S. and other countries concerned early in March after resuming our nuclear activities from December last year."
President Bush -- who once described North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq -- has said he wants to resolve the nuclear crisis peacefully, but he has not ruled out a military solution. Washington had demanded that North Korea abandon its nuclear program.
The North Korea statement gave no details on the reprocessing and did not refer to extracting weapons-grade plutonium from the spent fuel rods, which are stored at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex.
The 8,000 spent fuel rods could be used to make five or six nuclear bombs, and reprocessing them would be the most provocative of many steps North Korea has taken since the nuclear dispute flared up last October, according to experts.
U.S. intelligence experts believe North Korea already possesses one or two nuclear weapons.
Although it has experimented with new missile systems, North Korea is not believed to have the ability to fire nuclear warheads at the U.S. mainland, but South Korea, defended by 35,000 American troops, as well as neighboring nations such as Japan, could be targeted if Pyongyang wanted to take the ultimate step.
DIPLOMATIC COVER
The disclosure came on the heels of what the United States welcomed as progress in easing tension in the region.
Earlier this week, U.S. officials said that Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly would hold a meeting with North Korea and Chinese officials in Beijing -- the first face-to-face encounter in six months.
The participation of China was a key U.S. demand. Washington has insisted that the issue of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula was of importance to all the regional powers as well as to the United States and Russia.
Pyongyang had earlier insisted on negotiations only with Washington, but agreed last week to allow China at the table.
However, the participation of China may be no more than a diplomatic cover. Earlier on Friday, China's ambassador in Seoul said that North Korea and the United States should resolve their nuclear dispute themselves, and that Beijing doesn't plan to mediate between them during talks.
"I don't think China plans to mediate," Ambassador Li Bin told South Korean radio station MBC in an interview recorded Thursday. "Although China can play a constructive role, it is the two parties concerned that should resolve the problem. How much the problem could be resolved is up to how the two parties work."
U.S. and South Korean officials have said that China, a key ally of North Korea, will be a full participant in the forthcoming talks.
VIOLATING 1994 PACT
The nuclear crisis flared in October, when the United States claimed that North Korea had admitted having a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement.
The United States and other countries stopped oil shipments to the north, which retaliated by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and moving to restart a nuclear reactor.
South Korea's new ambassador to the United States, Han Sung-joo, said Friday that any negotiated deal will be far more complex than U.S.-North Korean talks in 1994 that froze the North's nuclear facilities, ending a crisis at that time.
Now, Han said, North Korea will be expected to not only stop but promptly and verifiably dismantle its nuclear programs.
"This is going to be an arduous, long process. It's not going to be a cakewalk," Han said. He said he did not expect any deal for at least a month or two, noting the 1994 crisis took well over a year to resolve.
SEOUL REACTION
China's involvement has been regarded as a diplomatic victory for Washington as Beijing had been reluctant to get involved in what U.S. officials described as a global dispute.
Beijing had previously supported Pyongyang's demands for one-on-one talks with Washington.
Chinese diplomats have repeatedly delayed the discussion of the crisis in the U.N. Security Council. Last week, after agreeing to discuss the topic in the council, China blocked a motion by Washington to condemn North Korea.
Washington insists on tackling the dispute through a multilateral format. It wants to expand future talks to include South Korea, Japan and Russia.
Also Friday, South Korea welcomed the Beijing talks and urged North Korea to resume inter-Korean dialogue.
North Korea canceled a series of talks with South Korea scheduled for last month and early this month amid tensions over its nuclear standoff.
"We urge North Korea to come to inter-Korean dialogue as soon as possible to discuss peace on the Korean Peninsula and other issues," Seoul's Unification Ministry said in a statement.
North Korea canceled Cabinet-level talks scheduled for April 7-10.
POWELL'S RESPONSE
The United States, while welcoming the talks next week, had sought to downplay the likelihood of progress.
"We believe this is the beginning of a long, intense process of discussion," Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.
"We will lay out clearly our concerns about their nuclear weapons development programs and other weapons of mass destruction, of their proliferation activities, missile programs," among other issues, he said.
Powell said the mood on the peninsula is one of relative quiet, adding that this could auger well for the talks.
"We are hopeful that nothing will happen that would make the political environment difficult," he said.
As for the North's penchant for delivering inflammatory statements, Powell said, "They seem to be not more provocative than usual. By the standards of normal discourse between us and the DPRK, it is relatively calm."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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