N Korea defends decision to restart nuclear program

Beijing - North Korea's top diplomat here blamed the United States today for his country's decision to restart its nuclear program, calling it an act of self-defense in response to American aggression.

The diplomat, Ambassador Choe Jin Su, also criticized the Bush administration for recruiting mutual allies, like Russia and China, to pressure Pyongyang, saying the crisis could and should be solved by the United States and North Korea without interference.

Mr. Choe said his country was "compelled" to restart its nuclear program and to expel inspectors from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency. He said those decisions were necessary after President Bush included North Korea with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil," made threatening statements toward North Korea and halted shipments of much-needed fuel oil.

"Under this situation, we took our measures," Mr. Choe said at a news conference here, adding that North Korea's moves were a matter of "national dignity."

But none of the North Korean charges were new, and the tone of the briefing was in many ways less belligerent than previous statements, with Mr. Choe repeatedly suggesting that the United States and North Korea should "sit down at the table" in search of a peaceful solution.

"The nuclear situation on the Korean Peninsula can be solved easily if the U.S. will assure us of our security," he said, repeating North Korea's call for a nonaggression pact.

But he expressed skepticism about recent statements from President Bush that the crisis in North Korea could be resolved diplomatically. "The Bush administration is now talking about dialogue, that they have no intention of attacking the D.P.R.K. — but who can believe these words?" Mr. Choe said, referring to North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The United States has said that it will not hold talks with North Korea so long as it is developing nuclear weapons.

In Seoul, an adviser to South Korea's President-elect Rho Moo-hyu, Ben Q. Limb, reiterated that the incoming South Korean government favored dialogue.

"The new government calls for dialogue, and President Bush just mentioned two days ago that North Korea's program could be resolved through diplomacy — now, can there be diplomacy without dialogue?" Mr. Limb said. "The news conference by the North Korean ambassador is a kind of response in his own way to the meeting between the South Korean and Chinese representatives."

But Scott Snyder, the Korea representative of the Asia Foundation, an institute partly financed by the United States government, said the latest North Korean call for talks was "a nonstarter."

"Now that there is a clear condition for dialogue, it is easy to call for unconditional dialogue," he said. "Dialogue now requires some action on the part of the North Korea to undo what they have done.

"The North Koreans have used their ambassadors to float trial balloons in the past," Mr. Snyder continued, referring to earlier tension over North Korea's nuclear program. "There used to be these kinds of press conferences during the '93-'94 process as a way of shaping meetings. It is very typical of their way of trying to manage the process."

In recent weeks, the United States has called on China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to intercede — a tactic that Mr. Choe heatedly rejected. "The United States is now taking steps to create international pressure on us, but this maneuvering will make the issue more complicated and will not help resolve the issue," Mr. Choe said.

"If other countries are concerned about nuclear security on the Korean Peninsula, they should urge the United States to assure us of security and if they can't do that they should be quiet," Ambassador Choe said.

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang intensified in October, when North Korean diplomats admitted to American officials who were visiting that North Korea had maintained a clandestine nuclear weapons program. More recently, North Korea raised the stakes drastically by reopening a nuclear complex in Yongbyon that had been shuttered under a 1994 agreement intended to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

In exchange for shutting down the complex, North Korea was to be provided 500,000 tons of fuel annually. Those shipments, provided by an international consortium including the United States, South Korea and Japan, were stopped at the urging of the United States after North Korea's admission that it had a clandestine nuclear weapons program. -- New York Times

Brudirect.com