The Hindu : Nuclear deterrent force is indigenous: North Korea

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 22, 2004

International

International

Nuclear deterrent force is indigenous: North Korea

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, FEB. 21. North Korea today claimed that its "nuclear deterrent force'' had been developed indigenously on the basis of its home-grown technology. Pyongyang's official claim, monitored by South Korea, was also accompanied by the reaffirmation of a denial that a Pakistan-centred nuclear-proliferation ring had anything to do with the North Korean programme.

With these comments, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK] began to outline its public diplomacy ahead of the second round of six-party talks, scheduled to begin in Beijing on Feb. 25. The DPRK's denial of the U.S. assertions about the Islamabad link comes a day after the Malaysian authorities disclosed the findings of their investigation of the activities of an `associate' of the Pakistani nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan. There was no mention of North Korea in the submissions of the `associate' as outlined by the Malaysian police, whereas Iran and Libya figured as countries that the suspected nuclear mafia had dealt with.

Pyongyang dismissed as "false rumour'' all suggestions that it derived help from Pakistan for uranium enrichment. More significantly, the DPRK's state news agency denied even that Pyongyang's deterrent was based on any enriched uranium project.

The implied message was that the original plutonium-based project, the subject matter of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency at one stage, was behind North Korea's "deterrent force''.

The existence or otherwise of a North Korean uranium enrichment project came into international focus following the U.S. envoy, James Kelly's talks with the DPRK leaders in Pyongyang in October 2002. It is against this background that North Korea today characterised "the story about the enriched uranium programme'' as a `lie'.

The DPRK's official agency claimed that "the U.S.' ultra-neo-conservatives fabricated it [the story] ... after Kelly's Pyongyang visit''. The "ulterior intention'' behind such a story was to gain access to "the interior of the DPRK, on the basis of a legitimate mandate [from the international community]''.

The overall objective, it was said, was to "disarm [North Korea] just as the U.S. did in Iraq [now]''. A justification was now being sought by the U.S. for its likely `demand', at the prospective six-party talks, that North Korea "scrap its nuclear programme first'', Pyongyang said.

On a related plane, China, the talks host, said that "at present, all the parties show flexible and practical attitudes to different degrees and are willing to promote discussions on substantial issues''.

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