N. Korea nuclear work 'has begun'

Washington - Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry says North Korea has ratcheted up the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula by starting the reprocessing of nuclear material at its facility in Yongbyon.

"The reprocessing has begun but it has several months to go before it would be completed," Perry told a group of reporters and analysts at the Brookings Institution.

"The dangerous time is when that reprocessing is completed, at which time the plutonium -- weapons grade plutonium -- could be moved. That's several months away."

Perry did not say how he could be certain that the reprocessing has begun. Pentagon and diplomatic sources said there has been no sign that has happened. Rather, they say, there is evidence that North Korea is preparing to begin.

Perry, who was instrumental in defusing a similar crisis between the United States and North Korea in 1994, said the Bush administration's early approach to this situation may have helped create the current crisis.

"I believe that we should not have cut off the engagement with North Korea two years ago," Perry said. "That probably contributed to the present problem in North Korea. In any event, it has made it more difficult to deal with this problem."

Though the Bush administration has time to defuse the crisis, he said, failure to do so will increase the risk of war.

"The North Korea nuclear program poses an unacceptable security risk," Perry said.

"The United States strategy should be designed to ensure that the present activities at Yongbyon do not reach the production stage. Clearly to achieve this objective without war will take an aggressive and a creative diplomatic strategy."

The United States said North Korea admitted it was developing a nuclear weapons program when confronted by U.S. officials late last year.

The United States said that amounted to a violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework which promised U.S. assistance to North Korea in exchange for freezing it's nuclear program, and the Bush administration then decided to cut off fuel oil shipments to that nation.

North Korea has denied it admitted having a nuclear weapons program. It said it decided to restart the nuclear power program after the United States cut off the fuel oil shipments. -- CNN News

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