North Korea admits having nuclear weapons

angelize56 · 24-Apr-2003, 02:33 PM #1

Ohhh big suprise eh!

Ok back to the couch! Headache just got worse. Have a nice day all. Bye for now. Take care. angel

Sources: N. Korea admits having nuclear weapons
Senior administration source: Pyongyang threatens tests
Thursday, April 24, 2003 Posted: 1:24 PM EDT (1724 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sources close to the U.S. talks with North Korea and China told CNN Thursday that North Korea has admitted to having nuclear weapons and threatened to test them in the near future.

Deputy Director General Li Gun, Pyongyang's representative to the talks, made a "blatant and bold" announcement that his country had nuclear weapons, and asked U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs James Kelly, "What are you going to do about it?" a source told CNN.

One official said Li said Pyongyang would consider dismantling its nuclear weapons program if the United States signed a written security statement promising not to attack North Korea. Li said, however, it was not possible to dismantle a nuclear weapon.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the talks, scheduled to continue Friday, were "coming to a close" and all sides presented strong views over nuclear concerns.

"The sides will return to their capitals and assess what they heard, analyze proposals that were put down by the parties, and determine where they will go next," he told the Asia-Pacific Council.

"The one thing that is absolutely clear as a result of this meeting once again is that there is unity within the community that we must not allow the peninsula to become nuclear."

He noted this is the position of "the Chinese government, and of course of the United States, Japan, South Korea and of Russia, Australia and others in the region. North Korea must come to under this."

In a statement carried Thursday on the North Korean state news agency, Pyongyang said the U.S.-led war in Iraq has shown the only way for a country to protect itself was to have a powerful deterrent.

In such a situation it said the "master key" to progress in the talks was for Washington to make a "bold switchover" in its policy toward North Korea.

The statement, which referred to the Beijing talks, appeared to be a hardening of Pyongyang's long-standing position seeking some kind of security guarantee from the United States before it will talk about dismantling its nuclear program.

"In actuality, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is so tense that a war may break out any moment due to the U.S. moves," the North said.

The U.S. has insisted it will not be blackmailed, but says it has no plans to invade North Korea or to resort to any kind of military action.

Nonetheless, officials say their message to the North is that it must immediately end production of nuclear weapons and establish an intrusive inspections regime.

'Violation of sovereignty'

The Beijing talks were the first official meetings between the United States and North Korea since last October when Washington said North Korean officials admitted to them that they were pursuing an active nuclear weapons program.

North Korea denies any such admission took place and says the United States is using its accusation as an excuse to justify military action. Kelly was the same U.S. official who confronted Pyongyang about its nuclear program last October.

Li Gun, from the American Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a relatively low-level official who observers say does not have the authority to cut major deals with the United States.

Officials attending the talks in Beijing have remained tight-lipped about their progress but observers say there is little likelihood of any major breakthrough being announced. Most say the best outcome will be an agreement to meet for further talks at a later date.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing spoke by phone Wednesday with Powell and both agreed the talks were "beneficial," China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Thursday.

"The two sides exchanged views on how to properly handle the nuclear issue of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK] and both believed that the ongoing talks in Beijing [were] beneficial," the Xinhua report said.

An official wall of silence has surrounded the talks. But South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted sources as saying Kelly demanded North Korea dismantle its nuclear plans verifiably and irreversibly.

From North Korea's side, the paper said Li admitted the Iraq war had taught Pyongyang to see a nonaggression pact.

24-Apr-2003, 06:25 PM #2

Koreans Fear Invasion By Americans,

Mike Thomson, BBC Radio 4's Today Programme reporter who has just returned from Pyongyang, reports on the freezing temperatures and rising tensions in North Korea.

The city's underground system, with its sinister piped music, still works, largely thanks to having its own electricity supply, but everywhere else, life is slowly spluttering to a chilly, uncomfortable halt.

Sometimes the weather is as cold as -20 Centigrade and many of our homes have no heat at all.

Kim Jae-rok, director of the government's energy ministry

Most of the country lacks any heating or lighting, food is scarce, and the winters here are freezing.

Kim Jae-rok, director of the government's energy ministry, admits that times are not just hard, they are desperate.

"Sometimes the weather is as cold as minus 20C and many of our homes have no heat at all. Not only that, but most live in high-rise buildings and we lack the power to pump water up to those on above floors," he said.

"So many elderly people have no heating or water and sometimes have to walk up 40 or more floors because there's no power for the elevators either. Just imagine the suffering this causes," he added.

Pointing the finger

Mr Kim pins the blame, like most people here, on the United States, for pushing the country to freeze its nuclear programme, back in 1994.

Pyongyang's subway still works, but elsewhere life is stalling

"At that time, the 5-MegaWatt (MW) plant was working and we had started building two much bigger 50- and 200-MW atomic power plants. These would have produced 255,000 MW by the end of last year All were stopped, " he told me,

"We now need to build a total of five atomic energy plants to recoup that loss and meet the energy needs of our country... People are suffering, we cannot delay. We must do this as soon as possible, it is very urgent," Mr Kim warned.

Such a plan will not be music to the ears of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], or the American Government, who feel that the Yongbyon nuclear storage facility is already enough to worry about, without adding several more even larger plants that inspectors cannot visit.

Pyongyang insists that such schemes will be for peaceful purposes only, but that will not be enough in these nervous times.

Regular air raid drills and black-outs are now becoming part of everyday life here, which is a worrying trend in this volatile and divided land.

Invasion fears

I visited the truce village of Panmunjom, where the Koreas meet. Here, 1.7 million soldiers face each other - one million North Korean, 700,000 South Korean and 37,000 American. This is the place things could ignite.

Major Ri Kun-chol of the North Korean army acknowledges the risks of nuclear rows in a place where some opposing forces stand no more than 2 feet apart.

But he insists that his government has no plans to develop nuclear weapons, though he seems to believe that there is no reason why it should not, when others are not giving up theirs.

Lifts in apartment blocks have reportedly stopped

"Have you ever heard us insisting that the US tells us that it is developing nuclear weapons?" he asks. "Our people don't want war, but if the United States provokes another Korean War here, we'll give them a big blow in a very unexpected way."

The major points to an article in a Pyongyang paper claiming to have proof of a detailed American plan to invade his country. But does he really believe this is true?

"Yes, it's true, it's all true. I have seen the newspaper. Korean newspapers don't tell lies. They are always fair and reflect reality."

At the Korean War Museum in Sinchon, south of Pyongyang, tourists are taken on a ghoulish tour of alleged American atrocities.

It includes the following: "He pulls the nails out of his fingers with pliers, then he pulled the nail out of his toes. They killed him by driving a dagger through his body. The poor man was 70 years old."

The curator was too young to fight then, and he looks too old now, should hostilities flare up again. But rather worryingly he, and many of his countrymen, seem to be almost hoping they will.

"We are now trying to turn all our country into a fortress. This can repel the enemy's attack. Not only the Korean people's army but all the people they are fully armed, ready to fight a war," he said.

angelize56 · 11-May-2003, 01:19 AM #3

Just found this article interesting. Take care. angel

The two faces of Rumsfeld

2000: director of a company which wins $200m contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea
2002: declares North Korea a terrorist state, part of the axis of evil and a target for regime change

Randeep Ramesh
Friday May 9, 2003
The Guardian

Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil" and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Mr Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m (£125m) contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defence secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year. He left to join the Bush administration.

The reactor deal was part of President Bill Clinton's policy of persuading the North Korean regime to positively engage with the west.

The sale of the nuclear technology was a high-profile contract. ABB's then chief executive, Goran Lindahl, visited North Korea in November 1999 to announce ABB's "wide-ranging, long-term cooperation agreement" with the communist government.

The company also opened an office in the country's capital, Pyongyang, and the deal was signed a year later in 2000. Despite this, Mr Rumsfeld's office said that the defence secretary did not "recall it being brought before the board at any time".

In a statement to the American magazine Newsweek, his spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said that there "was no vote on this". A spokesman for ABB told the Guardian yesterday that "board members were informed about the project which would deliver systems and equipment for light water reactors".

Just months after Mr Rumsfeld took office, President George Bush ended the policy of engagement and negotiation pursued by Mr Clinton, saying he did not trust North Korea, and pulled the plug on diplomacy. Pyongyang warned that it would respond by building nuclear missiles. A review of American policy was announced and the bilateral confidence building steps, key to Mr Clinton's policy of detente, halted.

By January 2002, the Bush administration had placed North Korea in the "axis of evil" alongside Iraq and Iran. If there was any doubt about how the White House felt about North Korea this was dispelled by Mr Bush, who told the Washington Post last year: "I loathe [North Korea's leader] Kim Jong-il."

The success of campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have enhanced the status of Mr Rumsfeld in Washington. Two years after leaving ABB, Mr Rumsfeld now considers North Korea a "terrorist regime _ teetering on the verge of collapse" and which is on the verge of becoming a proliferator of nuclear weapons. During a bout of diplomatic activity over Christmas he warned that the US could fight two wars at once - a reference to the forthcoming conflict with Iraq. After Baghdad fell, Mr Rumsfeld said Pyongyang should draw the "appropriate lesson".

Critics of the administration's bellicose language on North Korea say that the problem was not that Mr Rumsfeld supported the Clinton-inspired diplomacy and the ABB deal but that he did not "speak up against it". "One could draw the conclusion that economic and personal interests took precedent over non-proliferation," said Steve LaMontagne, an analyst with the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington.

Many members of the Bush administration are on record as opposing Mr Clinton's plans, saying that weapons-grade nuclear material could be extracted from the type of light water reactors that ABB sold. Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and the state department's number two diplomat, Richard Armitage, both opposed the deal as did the Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, whose campaign Mr Rumsfeld ran and where he also acted as defence adviser.

One unnamed ABB board director told Fortune magazine that Mr Rumsfeld was involved in lobbying his hawkish friends on behalf of ABB.

The Clinton package sought to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula by offering supplies of oil and new light water nuclear reactors in return for access by inspectors to Pyongyang's atomic facilities and a dismantling of its heavy water reactors which produce weapons grade plutonium. Light water reactors are known as "proliferation-resistant" but, in the words of one expert, they are not "proliferation-proof".

The type of reactors involved in the ABB deal produce plutonium which needs refining before it can be weaponised. One US congressman and critic of the North Korean regime described the reactors as "nuclear bomb factories".

North Korea expelled the inspectors last year and withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in January at about the same time that the Bush administration authorised $3.5m to keep ABB's reactor project going.

North Korea is thought to have offered to scrap its nuclear facilities and missile pro gramme and to allow international nuclear inspectors into the country. But Pyongyang demanded that security guarantees and aid from the US must come first.

Mr Bush now insists that he will only negotiate a new deal with Pyongyang after the nuclear programme is scrapped. Washington believes that offering inducements would reward Pyongyang's "blackmail" and encourage other "rogue" states to develop weapons of mass destruction.

ComputerFix · 11-May-2003, 02:28 AM #4

Maybe I am not "politically astute" enough to make this statement, but will anyways (I always do

)

NK seems hell bent on getting an agreement from the US to not go anywhere near them militarily. Could this be because they plan on taking SK back soon? Would a piece of paper with GW's sig on it to that effect really present some sort of "bind"?

I know that the US isn't on a lot of peoples fav list, but would there really be shock and outrage if the US responded to an invasion of SK with such an agreement in place?

Also, I again see that NK is talking about how "tense" it is there, and war can break out "at any moment". Now I know I only get to see what I am allowed to see (

) , but to me, tense was Baghdad the night the "deadline" passed. Tense was when the Soviets parked a fully visible missile in Cuba.

I don't see anything "tense" except their insistence that "war can break out at any moment".

I figure if it was really like that, there would already be anti war in NK protesters amassing.

Really just trying to figure out the angles here, so feedback is appreciated.

BTW Angel, despite what that guy said in the first article, a nuclear weapon CAN be dismantled.

angelize56 · 11-May-2003, 02:31 AM #5

Thanks CF! By the way...here's another avatar for ya!

Take care! angel <img src="http://forums.techguy.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=857308">

**bassetman** · 11-May-2003, 03:24 AM #6

*Yawn*!

angelize56 · 11-May-2003, 03:25 AM #7

No baklava...that'd be this: <img src="http://forums.techguy.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=857374">

**bassetman** · 11-May-2003, 03:27 AM #8

angelize56 · 10-Feb-2005, 06:11 AM #9

North Korea has announced for the first time publicly

.....they have nuclear weapons...see post #158 here:

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread...61#post2345861

I couldn't find this thread until now!

angelize56 · 10-Feb-2005, 06:17 AM **#10**

I requested this be moved to CivDeb!

**dvk01** · 10-Feb-2005, 06:30 AM **#11**

Moved as requested

angelize56 · 10-Feb-2005, 06:36 AM **#12**

Thanks dvk!

angelize56 · 01-May-2005, 10:12 PM **#13**

Kim Jong Il is a menace to the world!

U.S.: N. Korea apparently tests missile
Development follows tough language in nuclear standoff

Sunday, May 1, 2005 Posted: 8:42 PM EDT (0042 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- North Korea apparently tested a short-range missile Sunday, the Bush administration said, the latest in a string of recent incidents to refocus international attention on the Korean Peninsula's nuclear standoff.

"It appears that there was a test of a short-range missile by the North Koreans and it landed in the Sea of Japan," White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said on CNN's "Late Edition."

The day before the apparent test, North Korea called President Bush a "hooligan" and said it expected no solution of the international standoff over its nuclear program during the current U.S. administration.

The comments by North Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman followed a White House news conference Thursday at which Bush described North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as a "tyrant" and a "dangerous person." (Well the truth hurts! Kim is a maniac!)

Also Thursday, a Defense Department intelligence official said North Korea has the "theoretical capability" to arm a missile with a nuclear device and strike the United States. (I heard Hawaii, Alaska and the western seaboard...

)

Card said Sunday that the White House was "not surprised" by the apparent missile test.

"The North Koreans have tested their missiles before," he said. "They've had some failures"

Six-nation talks on persuading North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions -- involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia -- have been stalled since last June, after three inconclusive rounds.

"We have to work together with our allies around the world -- especially the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Russians and the Chinese -- to demonstrate that North Korea's actions are inappropriate," Card said. "We don't want the Korean Peninsula to have any nuclear weapons on it."

North Korea has said it will stay away from the nuclear talks until Washington apologizes for comments U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made in January, when she described the communist state as one of the world's "outposts of tyranny."

Resuming the talks gained urgency in February when North Korea said it had developed nuclear weapons and would boycott the talks indefinitely. The North has since threatened to increase its nuclear arsenal and has demanded that the United States drop what it calls a hostile policy.

Sunday, Card described Kim as "not a good leader."

He said North Koreans "are living in poverty -- many in concentration camps. They do not have any exercise of democracy or freedom. They are not allowed to contact the outside world. [Kim] is not the kind of leader that is comfortable with the rest of the world."

LOSER!

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Card portrayed North Korea as a target of U.S. efforts to inspire democracy around the world.

"We're doing everything we can to make sure that the people of North Korea recognize that they're being cheated and denied opportunities that come with freedom and democracy," he said.

History of testing

U.S. State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper issued a statement saying the missile test apparently took place Sunday.

"We are continuing to look into this," Cooper said. "We are consulting closely with governments in the region. We have long been concerned about North Korea's missile program and activities, and urge North Korea to continue its moratorium on ballistic missile tests."

Sunday's test came one day before the opening of a nearly monthlong United Nations conference on the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The U.N. convenes the meetings once every five years to review developments under the accord, from which North Korea withdrew in January 2003.

North Korea tested missiles in 2003, and in 1998, it test-fired a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.

Japanese officials had no immediate response to reports of Sunday's test. But it is likely to have the biggest political impact in that country, said an international security expert from Harvard University.

"It's going to make the Japanese nervous," Jim Walsh told CNN on Sunday. "And it's going to put pressure on the Japanese prime minister."

Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said on "Late Edition" that Sunday's test shows the Bush administration's refusal to hold direct talks with Pyongyang is leading to an even greater nuclear threat.

The test, Levin said, is "additional, very discouraging evidence that this administration's policy towards North Korea is failing. We've had a lot of other evidence in the last four years -- the fact that they have renewed their reprocessing program of plutonium; the fact that they're now enriching uranium; and the fact they apparently can now put a nuclear weapon on a missile."

Last week, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby testified on Capitol Hill that, according to a U.S. assessment, North Korea has the capacity to arm a missile with a nuclear device and hit U.S. territory.

Such a "two-stage" missile is "assessed to be within their capacity," Jacoby said in response to a question from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat.

The Pentagon later argued that Jacoby was not stating new information but only reiterating his previous statements that North Korea has a "theoretical capability to produce a warhead and mate it with a missile."

"We have no information to suggest they have done so," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement Saturday.

Walsh said North Korea has never successfully tested a long-range missile or a nuclear device -- much less a combination of the two.

"We are very, very far from that point," he told CNN.

But Levin argued that the danger North Korea presents is mounting. He pointed to an official moratorium on missile testing "that the North Koreans imposed on themselves" toward the end of the Clinton administration "when we were talking directly to the North Koreans."

In addition to the multilateral talks, Levin said, the Bush administration should "talk directly to the North Koreans. That's what's been missing. ... The nuclear threat is increasing from North Korea as a result."

But Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said North Korea lied to the United States in the bilateral talks during the Clinton presidency.

"On the one hand, we thought we solved the problem, and they were picking our pocket with the other hand, developing nuclear capability," Coleman told CNN on Sunday. "It's not that it's impossible to negotiate with them, it's that it's worthless to negotiate with them because Kim Jong Il is a petty tyrant."

Multilateral talks could make a difference because "China has some leeway on North Korea," Coleman said. "If you bring enough people in who have a stake in what happens, those in the region, you got a better chance of getting something done."

Levin countered that China and South Korea want the United States to hold bilateral talks in addition to the multilateral negotiations.

Sunday's test "was a political act, not a military act," Walsh said, calling it "an attempt to put pressure on the United States, to try to get them to come and talk to the North Koreans."

During his televised news conference Thursday, Bush insisted the six-party talks are working and are the best way to solve the dispute.

"The best way to deal with this diplomatically is to bring more leverage to the situation by including other countries," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapc...ile/index.html

**bassetman** · 02-May-2005, 04:35 AM **#14**

And we picked Iraq first why?

linskyjack · 02-May-2005, 09:41 AM **#15**

There you go Basset. Here you have North Korea, perhaps the most dangerous country in the world, not primarily because they have nuclear capability, but because the have transfered such technology and would have no problem selling to an Al Queda type.

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