N Korea ‘Admits’ Nuclear Weapons Programme

The divided Korean peninsula appeared to be heading towards a fresh crisis on Thursday after the US said North Korea had for the first time admitted to developing weapons of mass destruction.

In a surprise statement, the US state department said North Korea acknowledged during talks with US officials earlier this month that it has an active programme to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

The admission came after James Kelly, US undersecretary of state, presented evidence of the programme - gathered from US intelligence sources - during his three-day visit to Pyongyang October

Washington said North Korea was in "serious violation" of a string of arms-control deals and called on "peace-loving nations" in the region to "deal, effectively, with this challenge".

The development appears to have pushed North Korea several notches up Washington's growing list of international security concerns at a time when the US is also confronting Iraq and hunting terrorist organisations in Afghanistan and south-east Asia.

Washington's decision to make public its information about North Korea's nuclear activities appeared to be part of its wider global clampdown on rogue states suspected of seeking weapons of mass destruction.

Analysts said the revelation strengthened the prospect that North Korea - considered by the US to be part of an "axis of evil" - could be a future target after Iraq of the US war against terror.

Washington's intervention appeared to undermine recent efforts by Japan and South Korea to reduce tensions with Pyongyang and cast doubt on recent signs that North Korea was opening to the outside world.

However, both Tokyo and Seoul on Thursday said that their engagement with Pyongyang would continue.

Diplomats in Seoul said they feared a repeat of the 1994 crisis, when the Korean peninsula came close to armed conflict after the US first accused North Korea of developing nuclear weapons.

War was avoided in 1994 by a deal, called the Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to halt nuclear weapons development in return for the US and its allies building a nuclear power station in the energy-starved country.

Diplomats said North Korea's apparent violation of the Agreed Framework, which has helped maintain stability on the Korean peninsula over the past eight years, put the deal under serious threat of collapse.

President George W. Bush voiced long-held US suspicions earlier this year that North Korea has continued to develop nuclear weapons since 1994. However, this is the first time that the US has claimed evidence of a breach and the first time North Korea has admitted to it.

The state department said North Korea's uranium enrichment programme had been active for "several years".

"North Korean officials acknowledged that they have such a programme. The North Koreans attempted to blame the United States and said that they considered the Agreed Framework nullified," said the state department.

Failure of the Agreed Framework would throw the international community's relations with North Korea into disarray.

Intensive diplomatic activity between Pyongyang, Seoul and Tokyo in recent months, together with evidence that North Korea was reforming its crumbling communist economy, had raised hopes that the world's last Stalinist state was changing its behaviour. However, Washington's revelation is likely to cause renewed tensions between North Korea and the outside world.

"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," said the state department. The US sought a "peaceful resolution" to the situation, the statement added.

"The United States and our allies call on North Korea to comply with its commitments under the Nonproliferation Treaty, and to eliminate its nuclear weapons programme in a verifiable manner," the statement said.

The Bush administration was consulting members of congress before deciding what further action to take, the statement said.

Some hardline members of the Bush administration are believed to favour scrapping of the Agreed Framework as part of Washington's tough stance against rogue states seeking weapons of mass destruction. However, others believe that the US should keep faith with the deal and resolve the dispute through dialogue.

Mr Kelly was traveling to north-east Asia to confer with Seoul and Tokyo about the issue.

The South Korean government said in a statement it was "firmly opposed" to North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and called upon Pyongyang to "fully comply with all its commitments" to freeze the programme. Seoul said it would raise the issue during the next round of inter-Korean ministerial talks, scheduled for next week.

"All issues, including North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, should be resolved by peaceful means through dialogue," said South Korea's foreign ministry.

Yim Sung-joon, South Korean president Kim Dae-jung's top presidential adviser on national security and foreign policy said North Korea's "frank confirmation" of its nuclear activities was "a sign North Korea is willing to resolve this problem through dialogue."

Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese prime minister, said there would be "no change" to Tokyo's plans for talks with North Korea starting on October 29, aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries. "We want to ask North Korea to deal with this sincerely and get rid of the nuclear suspicions," he told reporters.

The Agreed Framework was already under strain before Washington's intervention. Construction of the two nuclear reactors by the US and its allies in North Korea has fallen years behind schedule and Pyongyang has failed to fulfill its agreement to allow international inspections of its existing nuclear facilities.