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North Korea Denies It Has a Warhead
Officials tell a U.S. delegation that claims about their nuclear
weapons and uranium enrichment program were exaggerated.
By Barbara Demick
Times Staff Writer
January 13, 2004
SEOUL - North Korean officials told an unofficial U.S.
delegation last week that many claims about their nuclear
program were exaggerated and that they did not have a nuclear
warhead or a program to secretly enrich uranium for such a
weapon, said sources familiar with the trip.
The North Koreans did, however, reiterate their claim to have
produced weapons-grade plutonium and showed the delegation
their facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear complex and what was
purported to be a sample of the plutonium.
"They said, 'We have the potential to make nuclear weapons, but
we do not have a weapon,' " said a South Korean official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity. "They were very adamant in
their denials, especially about the highly enriched uranium."
The visit Friday to the Yongbyon compound about 60 miles north
of Pyongyang marked the first time that outsiders have been
allowed a glimpse of the nuclear program since the expulsion of
U.N. arms inspectors a year ago. Among those in the six-person
delegation was Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los
Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, who also had lengthy
conversations with North Korean officials at Yongbyon.
The delegation was shown the cooling pond where fuel rods
from North Korea's 5-megawatt nuclear reactor are stored and
what was said to be weapons-grade plutonium recently
reprocessed from the fuel rods. But because the delegation was
not allowed to take samples or photographs and was not given
documents, it is difficult to confirm the exact nature of the
material.
"The U.S. delegates consistently said they had a hard time
making a final decision on what they had seen in the North," Wi
Sung Lac, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official told reporters
Monday.
Two members of the delegation, Senate Foreign Relations
Committee aides Frank Januzzi and Keith Luse, briefed South
Korean officials Monday in Seoul on the visit. The delegation is
expected to make a complete report to the U.S. Congress on Jan
20.
The North Korean denial of producing highly enriched uranium
- an alternate method for making nuclear bombs - was
particularly interesting to the U.S. delegates because it seemed
to mark a change in tactics. In October 2001, a North Korean
official apparently boasted in a meeting with Assistant Secretary
of State James A. Kelly that they did have such a program. That
meeting threw U.S.-North Korean relations into crisis.
Ever since, there has been much debate about exactly what was
said in the 2001 meeting and how it was translated. The North
Koreans have told the Chinese and the South Koreans that the
Americans misunderstood their remarks.
During last week's visit, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim
Kye Gwan told the U.S. delegates emphatically and
unequivocally that there is no highly enriched uranium program.
U.S. and South Korean intelligence agents have gathered what
they consider to be irrefutable evidence that the North Koreans
were importing sophisticated centrifuges, aluminium and
lubricants for uranium enrichment. The CIA also believes North
Korea has produced one or two simple nuclear weapons.
"We don't necessarily believe them. I think they realize they made
a mistake when they admitted it before and they want to take it
back," said a South Korean official. "But we think they are very
serious about wanting to negotiate in order to survive. They
wanted to show the Americans that their nuclear program is
transparent, that they are cooperative and they want to resolve
this diplomatically."
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