United States

N. Korea reacts to US stance, US scholar says

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-10-04 17:18

Washington - North Korea's announcement on Tuesday that it would conduct a nuclear test suggests Pyongyang believes the United States won't agree to direct talks, a scholar who recently visited the North said.

Selig Harrison, an American analyst with the Washington-based Center for International Policy, said North Korea's statement "is clearly designed to step up the pressure on the United States for bilateral negotiations to find a compromise on the issue of financial sanctions."

But Harrison, who visited Pyongyang Sept 19-23, expected it would have the opposite effect because US President George W. Bush would not bow to a North Korean pressure, especially ahead of the Nov 7 US election.

Harrison, a former journalist who was one of the first Americans admitted to North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War, has unusual access to Pyongyang because of that history, which included meetings with the late leader Kim Il Sung.

When he left Pyongyang, Harrison reported that the North Koreans planned to unload fuel rods from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, providing enough nuclear fuel for up to six more nuclear weapons.

But he said that when he asked North Korean officials about the possibility of launching a first nuclear test -- which would prove to the world it really does have nuclear weapons capability -- they would neither confirm nor deny media reports about test preparations.

This suggested North Korean leaders were still debating how to handle the nuclear test issue. "All of them emphasized that North Korea already has functioning nuclear weapons, implying that a test is not necessary," he said.

A US refusal to respond to North Korean overtures for direct bilateral talks on the financial sanctions issue "strengthened the hardliners in the internal debates and appears to have tipped the scales" in favor of Pyongyang issuing the nuclear test threat, Harrison said.

While the United States must enforce laws against counterfeiting and money-laundering, the Bush administration has gone beyond that, aiming to cut off all North Korean access to the international financial system and leading Pyongyang to conclude "we are out to bring them down," he said.

Harrison said the North's statement should not be exaggerated and contained positive elements, namely that Pyongyang indicated it would test in the future, not right away, and that it declared it would not be the first to use a nuclear weapon.