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Non-official U.S. team visits North Korea

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, JAN. 10. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said today that it "showed (its) nuclear deterrent'' to a visiting non-official delegation from the United States. The five members of the delegation, who reached Beijing today after making a five-day trip to North Korea, indicated that they would like to brief the U.S. authorities before going public on any of the details.

North Korea's official statement, monitored in Seoul, prompted the professional DPRK-watchers in South Korea to speculate that the renewed claim about a "nuclear deterrent'' might spark further tensions in Pyongyang's fragile relationship with Washington.

The delegation's visit to several places in North Korea, including the Yongbyon nuclear complex, has attracted international attention on two counts. First, the context of China's efforts to re-convene the six-party talks on the nuclear question has lent a certain sense of urgency to the delegation's visit.

The first round, held in Beijing last August, was attended by the U.S., the DPRK, South Korea, Japan and Russia, besides China itself as the host. Secondly, the Yongbyon complex has remained inaccessible to international visitors for over a year before the delegation's tour of that place now. The DPRK expelled the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency from Yongbyon over a year ago, after withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in a fierce row with the U.S. In brief remarks to the international press in Beijing, the head of the delegation, John Lewis, a university scholar, said that the team had been hosted by the North Korean Foreign Ministry. According to him, the North Korean officials and interlocutors whom the delegation met were drawn from various walks of official life including the military establishment and the scientific community.

The visit, he maintained, was about the entirety of the North Korean issue and "not just the nuclear issue''. He said that the North Korean authorities "honoured all of those requests'' that were originally made by the delegation as also all of the "additional ones'' that were put forward. Another key member of the delegation, Sig Hecker, who was for long associated with the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory at its top echelon, spoke generally about the cooperative attitude of the North Korean interlocutors. The visit acquired importance as a result of the DPRK's offer of a "bold concession'' to the U.S. Pyongyang indicated its willingness to refrain from sensitive activities in the nuclear field as a first-phase measure within the framework of a `package' solution.

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