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North Korea Admits Nuclear Program NewsMax WiresWASHINGTON -- North Korea has acknowledged it has a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of an agreement signed in 1994 with the Clinton administration, U.S. officials confirmed late Wednesday. The announcement, which came early Thursday Korean time, has stunned South Korea, which then urged its communist neighbor to abide by all anti-nuclear agreements. The prospect of nuclear weapons in the North is likely to upset the delicate peace process that has recently restarted between the two Koreas. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said North Korea was in violation of its agreements and the Bush administration is consulting on the matter with Congress and U.S. allies. "Under the agreed framework North Korea committed not to pursue nuclear weapons and to come into compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty," Stanzel told United Press International. The agreed framework called on North Korea to halt its weapons program in exchange for U.S. assistance in building two light water reactors. The State Department called the North Korean acknowledgment a "serious violation" of the agreed framework and urged Pyongyang to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a "verifiable manner." "We seek a peaceful resolution of this situation," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "Everyone in the region has a stake in this issue and no peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea. This is an opportunity for peace-loving nations in the region to deal, effectively, with this challenge." Handling the Situation Boucher said Asst. Secretary of State James Kelly and the State Department's chief arms control official, John Bolton, were being sent to the region to confer with U.S. allies on how to best handle the surprising admission. North Korea was one of three states dubbed a part of the "axis of evil" by President George W. Bush, along with Iran and Iraq. However, Kelly returned from North Korea earlier this month, saying he had had "frank" and "useful" talks with its Communist leadership. In Seoul, officials expressed concern that the North's admission could deal a fatal blow to President Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Peace Prize-wining policy of peaceful engagement with Pyongyang. "President Kim considers North Korea's nuclear development a very serious matter which cannot be accepted under any circumstances," Yim Sung-joon, a national security adviser, told journalists. Kim will use the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC, summit in Mexico later this month to discuss the North's nuclear weapons program, Yim said. Under the 1994 agreement between North Korea and the United States, North Korea pledged to freeze its Soviet-designed weapon-grade plutonium producing graphite-moderated reactors, in return for a U.S. promise to build safer light-water models for the energy-starved communist state. Seoul's Defense Ministry has estimated North Korea has stockpiled enough plutonium to build at least one atomic bomb. Copyright 2002 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
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