North Korea talks confirm US doubts

NORTH Korea strongly implied in public yesterday it had deployed nuclear weapons and accused Washington of using the North’s comments on atomic bombs at talks last week as a “mean trick” to hinder progress.

The State Department says North Korea told US negotiators at the talks in Beijing Pyongyang had nuclear weapons, something US intelligence has long suspected.

The United States has described a North Korean disarmament proposal made in Beijing as blackmail but promised to study it. The Bush administration is divided about how to proceed.

The communist North’s official KCNA news agency said the three-day talks, which also included Chinese representatives, were fruitless but not an utter failure.

North Korea said the future was up to Washington, which it accused of having an increasingly hostile policy toward the North.

“The reality requires the DPRK to deter the escalating US moves to stifle the DPRK with physical force, compels it to opt for possessing a necessary deterrent force and put it into practice,” said the North Korean Foreign Ministry. DPRK is short for the North’s name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

KCNA said the United States should scrap its nuclear program “before such a small country as the DPRK does.”

“Frankly, any statement that implies, as this one does, possession of nuclear weapons is a very serious matter,” said one Western diplomat.

But South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urged people not to overreact to what the North Koreans had told Washington.

“North Korea’s admission is a card they have put down on the table with an element of game tactics in North Korea-US talks,” said Mr Roh.

By equating nuclear programs and talking about putting its deterrent into practice, the North clearly sought to imply it had nuclear weapons and had possibly deployed them, analysts said.

“It is deliberately ambiguous and it is designed to cause concern which might bring the Americans closer to the negotiating table,” said the diplomat.

The United States has yet to decide whether to seek further talks or United Nations input.

But has said it remains committed to finding a diplomatic outcome to the crisis.

The United States wants North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program. Regional atomic powers Russia and China do not want to see a nuclear North Korea, but have their own strategic interests.

South Korea, as the North’s direct neighbour, has a high-stakes interest in a peaceful solution to the crisis.

“We must stop North Korea from possessing nuclear weapons by all means,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said.

He declined to say how Seoul would react if the US sought sanctions against the North. Yoon said North Korea had made “a four-stage step-by-step proposal.”