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Friday, Oct. 22, 2004

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  On the eve of his trip the White House announced that President Bush on Monday signed legislation that would authorize up to $24 million a year in humanitarian aid for North Koreans, much of it for refugees who have fled the impoverished totalitarian country.

The measure will attach conditions to direct relief inside North Korea by seeking assurances that the country is using the money for such purposes as human rights protection, family reunification or prison reform.

Powell, meanwhile, commented in an interview with the Far Eastern Economic Review. A text of his remarks was made available Thursday by the State Department.

In the absence of more solid information, Powell said the administration has stuck by its estimate dating back several years that North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said on Sept. 27 that his country has turned plutonium extracted from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into several nuclear weapons.

Experts have said the rods could yield enough plutonium for eight bombs.

Powell's Caution

Powell's caution on North Korea's nuclear arms program contrasts sharply with the administration's confident assertions almost two years ago about Iraqi development of weapons of mass destruction.

The administration has since concluded that Iraq did not have any stockpiles of such weapons.

Powell conceded that the administration doesn't know what the North Koreans have done with the fuel rods since they ordered an end to U.N. nuclear inspection operations early last year.

"The intelligence community cannot tell you whether or not there are more weapons or not," Powell said. "They are making assumptions and they are doing the best that they can, you know, with a country that does not exactly post this stuff on their website."

Intelligence experts "cannot come to a definitive answer," Powell said, adding there's no reason they should be able to.

At all three stops on Powell's East Asia tour, he is expected to compare notes on the possibility of resuming six-country discussions on ending the stalemate over Pyongyang's weapons program.

Japan, China and South Korea are all partners with the United States in the process. The U.S. goal is the complete and irreversible dismantling of the North Korean program.

The negotiating process was setback recently when North Korea refused to attend a new round of six-party discussions after initially agreeing to do so.

There has been widespread speculation that North Korea wants to hold off on resuming discussions until after the U.S. election in hopes that President Bush will be defeated.

That may explain, Powell said, North Korea's unhurried behavior. He said he told Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun and his colleagues last June they can expect the "same president" for the next four years.

Paek, Powell said, "didn't smile, but all of his colleagues did."

On the China-Taiwan conflict, Powell noted that there is some pro-independence sentiment on the island but said the "one China" policy favored by the United States has served Beijing and Taipei well.

"We do not support independence," he said. "It would not serve the interests of the region and any movement in that direction of a serious nature ... has the potential for creating a real crisis in the region, and nobody benefits from that."

He added that the Taiwanese can have no doubt about where the United States stands on the subject.

"There is no conversation that takes place and no phone call that takes place that does not include a restatement of our policy," Powell said.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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