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U.S. Wants More on North Korea Nuclear Plan NewsMax.com Wires WASHINGTON -- The chief U.S. envoy at North Korean nuclear talks assured a House panel that the Bush administration will be persistent in finding out how far North Korea has progressed on a secret uranium-based weapons program. The North has denied U.S. claims it has such a program. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday that the U.S. knows that North Korea has bought equipment that could be used only for uranium enrichment, but he expressed uncertainty about the program's current state. "How far they've gotten, whether they've actually been able to produce highly enriched uranium at this time - I mean these are issues that intelligence analysts grapple with," Hill told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "But what we know is they have made the purchases, and we need to have complete clarity on this program." Hill's comments on North Korean uranium moved beyond testimony Tuesday from the U.S. national intelligence director's mission manager for North Korea, Joseph DeTrani, who backtracked from a previous U.S. view of "high confidence" that North Korea was buying material for a uranium production program. Now, he said, the U.S. administration believes the program exists "at the midconfidence level." In intelligence parlance, "moderate confidence" generally means that analysts have differing views, or credible information exists but has not been corroborated in a way that provides a higher level of confidence. In 2002, the CIA said North Korea "is constructing a plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year when fully operational - which could be as soon as mid-decade." Lawmakers are pressing U.S. negotiators to make sure any such program is accounted for as the North declares its nuclear efforts as part of a six-nation disarmament agreement reached on Feb. 13. Story Continues Below
U.S. accusations in 2002 that the North was conducting a secret uranium enrichment program unraveled a 1994 deal aimed at stopping the North's nuclear bomb-making. Tensions peaked this past October when North Korea exploded an underground nuclear device. The North said in the Feb. 13 accord that it would shutter its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon within 60 days, in exchange for aid. A much larger shipment of aid - about $250 million worth, Hill said - would follow once the North had declared all its nuclear programs and begun to disable them. The accord has sparked strong criticism in Washington, especially among conservatives, who see it as rewarding North Korea for years of bad behavior. The deal also has led to a scheduled March 5-6 meeting in New York between Hill and his North Korean negotiating counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, to discuss first steps toward establishing normal ties after decades of hostility that followed the 1950-53 Korean War. Kim was to stop in San Francisco on Thursday for talks with nongovernmental groups. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack cautioned against high expectations for what he described as an organizational meeting between Hill and Kim. "Don't expect anybody to come out the front door on March 6 waving a piece of paper with breakthrough agreements," McCormack told reporters. During Wednesday's hearing, skeptical lawmakers outlined a number of other worries about the agreement. Several questioned U.S. efforts, as part of the accord, to lift financial restrictions connected with North Korean money laundering and counterfeiting even though they said North Korea continued to counterfeit U.S. currency. Hill said the Bush administration would be vigilant on the matter and would act if it should see signs of counterfeiting. "We have no intention of trading nuclear deals for counterfeiting of our currency," he said. U.S. restrictions on Banco Delta Asia in September 2005 prompted Macau to freeze about $24 million in North Korean money at the bank. An angry North Korea boycotted the nuclear negotiations for more than a year. Hill suggested that once the Treasury Department concludes its regulatory action against the bank, it will be Macau's responsibility to deal with the North's frozen funds.
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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