Nuclear weapons ‘won’t be tolerated’

SOUTH KOREA’s president yesterday said his nation would never tolerate North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons, as the communist nation began moving fresh fuel rods to a mothballed nuclear reactor.

President Kim Dae-jung told a special Cabinet meeting, however, that the standoff should be resolved through dialogue, despite deepening concerns that North Korea will restart facilities that experts say could produce nuclear weapons within months.

“We can never go along with North Korea’s nuclear weapons development,” Kim said in remarks released to the press by his spokeswoman, Park Sun-sook. “We must closely cooperate with the United States, Japan and other friendly countries to prevent the situation from further deteriorating into a crisis.”

Kim, whose five-year term ends in February, was the architect of a policy of engagement with North Korea that resulted in a historic summit in 2000.

His successor, Roh Moo-hyun, has also advocated dialogue to ease nuclear tensions since he was elected to the nation’s top job last week. Roh plans to exchange special envoys with the Bush administration in January to discuss the nuclear standoff.

North Korea announced earlier this month it planned to restart its nuclear facilities to get badly needed electricity, though US officials have said that the power obtained from the reactor would be negligible.

State media in Pyongyang, the North’s capital, defended the decision yesterday.

“The US is going around trying to stir public opinion internationally, as though this is a sign of developing nuclear weapons,” state-run Radio Pyongyang said in a commentary.

“Our measure has got nothing to do with plans to develop nuclear weapons. Our republic constantly maintains an anti-nuclear, peace-loving position,” the commentary said.

In the past week, North Korea removed UN monitoring seals and cameras from its nuclear facilities, ignoring warnings by the US and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. On Wednesday, North Korea again defied international opinion by moving fresh fuel rods from a storage house into a power plant in Yongbyon.