N. Korea says it fulfilled nuclear deal U.S. officials counter that Pyongyang has not provided Washington with a full list of its nuclear activities, as promised. By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 5, 2008 WASHINGTON -- American and North Korean officials traded charges Friday over the lagging effort to shut down Pyongyang's nuclear program, raising new doubts about an initiative that the Bush administration has hoped would yield a rare diplomatic success. North Korea's Foreign Ministry declared that it had fulfilled a commitment to provide U.S. officials with a full list of its nuclear activities before a Dec. 31 deadline, and intended to do no more. "As far as the nuclear declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is concerned, [North Korea] has done what it should do," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. U.S. officials insisted that Pyongyang had not yet provided the declaration that it promised on two occasions last year. "The North Koreans need to get about the business of completing the declaration," said Sean McCormack, the chief State Department spokesman. "It is another data point that will indicate that they are serious about denuclearizing the Korean peninsula." The North Korean government last year pledged a step-by-step program of disabling and then dismantling its nuclear complex in return for various rewards, including fuel oil, steel products and normalization of diplomatic relations. By the end of last year, North Korea was to have dismantled a decrepit reactor at Yongbyon and disclosed all nuclear assets and activities, including its inventory of bombs and fissile materials and a uranium enrichment program that Pyongyang has so far denied. But as the year-end deadline passed without completion of the nuclear inventory or full disabling of the reactor, criticism has grown in the United States that Kim Jong Il's government is following a familiar pattern of probing to see what it can obtain without giving up the nuclear program it considers a precious asset. U.S. officials, who have clung to optimism despite a series of snags, said it was important not to overlook that North Korea said in its statement that it remained committed to the effort. "I think we're seeing progress on parts of this agreement," said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. But Robert Einhorn, a former senior U.S. official on nonproliferation, said North Korea's statement may be more than just bluster aimed at improving its bargaining position in talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. Pyongyang regards secrecy about its nuclear program as a "strategic asset," and may be unwilling to come clean, said Einhorn, who is at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Obviously, a failure to make a full and accurate declaration will cast real doubt on whether they are willing to get rid of their nuclear capability completely," he said. For that reason, he said, it is "potentially a showstopper" for the six-nation denuclearization talks. North Korean officials and the U.S. negotiating team, headed by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, had discussed what the nuclear inventory declaration would include, American officials have said. U.S. officials hoped those discussions would avoid a later confrontation over an inadequate declaration. But North Korea said Friday that it had offered the United States a document in November, which the Americans apparently found insufficient. The North Koreans said that although the U.S. officials wanted more talks, Pyongyang had had "enough discussions." The ministry's statement again denied that the North Koreans had aided Syria in a nuclear weapons program, calling that allegation "a fiction." U.S. officials have demanded to know whether North Korea had a hand in building an alleged Syrian nuclear facility that reportedly was bombed by Israel in early September. The North Koreans said that in response to American suspicions that Pyongyang had imported aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment, they had shown U.S. officials a military site at which aluminum tubes were used for other purposes. The North Koreans accused the United States of failing to honor its commitment to take North Korea off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and to lift sanctions under American trade laws. The ministry asserted that North Korea had done more than other countries as part of the denuclearization deal. But it said it refused to go further because the deal provided that each side would move ahead "action for action." Charles L. Pritchard, a former Bush administration envoy who is president of the Korea Economic Institute, said the North Korean statements were aimed at rebutting accusations from several countries that Pyongyang had failed to meet its commitments by the year-end deadline. He said he did not view them as a threat to the denuclearization effort. The countries are "signaling each other in a PR kind of way," he said. The Bush administration, after taking a hard line on North Korea for its first six years, has made a series of concessions in the last year to keep negotiations going. Einhorn said the administration might change its tune if the latest statement proves to be a signal of intransigence. The administration "has already taken a lot of hits from the right wing," he said. "I think the administration will feel it's under pressure to do something to show that it doesn't have infinite patience." (L.A.타임스) All Nuclear Efforts Disclosed, N. Korea Says U.S. Calls Pyongyang's Declaration Incomplete but Says Negotiations Will Continue U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill has cited a need to know how much plutonium North Korea has. U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill has cited a need to know how much plutonium North Korea has. (By Lauren Victoria Burke -- Associated Press) TOKYO, Jan. 5 - After several months of relatively smooth progress, negotiations to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons have begun to stumble, with the communist state declaring Friday that it has disclosed all its nuclear programs but the Bush administration insisting that it has not. Under a deal struck in October, North Korea was to declare all its nuclear programs by the end of last year. This week, the Bush administration said the North had not met that deadline. In their generally muted response, U.S. officials said that they were disappointed but that negotiations would continue. In a statement Friday, the North said it had "done what it should do," citing a list of its nuclear programs that it provided in November. It accused the United States and other countries participating in six-party nuclear disarmament talks of holding back on promises made under the October deal, including the shipment of 1 million tons of fuel and the removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. About 150,000 tons of fuel have been delivered. The Bush administration has said since October that removal of the North from the terrorist list would be based on moves by the Pyongyang government to disclose, disable and ultimately dismantle its nuclear facilities. The delays have forced North Korea to "adjust the tempo of the disablement of some facilities on the principle of action for action," according to the Foreign Ministry statement, which was released by the official Korean Central News Agency. In Washington on Friday, the White House and the State Department reiterated that North Korea had not yet provided a "complete" declaration of its nuclear activity. Christopher R. Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs and the principal U.S. negotiator in the six-nation talks, has said that Washington officials want to find out, among other things, how much plutonium the North has. Plutonium is a key bombmaking ingredient. "We're not going to sacrifice fullness and completeness in the interests of time," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday. "The North Koreans need to get about the business of completing this declaration." North Korea did not say Friday what nuclear facilities it has disclosed to the United States. The primary issue in the dispute over the North's declaration of its nuclear capacities appears to be whether the country has a uranium enrichment program. The United States says it has found evidence that the North did have such a program, including its purchase of aluminum tubes that could be used to convert uranium gas into nuclear fuel. U.S. scientists have discovered traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided by North Korea, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources. The statement by the North said it has provided an explanation of the uranium program. "The controversial aluminum tubes had nothing to do with the uranium enrichment," the statement said. Although the Bush administration has criticized the North for failing to meet the negotiated deadline on declaring its nuclear programs, it has been careful to praise Pyongyang for moving ahead on disabling its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. U.S. nuclear experts have been in North Korea for nearly two months and "disablement continues," as McCormack put it Friday. This week, a White House spokesman said part of the fault for the slow pace of disabling the Yongbyon plant lies with the United States, which has insisted on some delays for safety and security reasons. The Bush administration substantially changed its approach to North Korea after the secretive Stalinist state detonated a nuclear device in October 2006. Since then, it has refrained from categorical condemnations and doggedly pursued negotiations. In Washington on Friday, the White House said that Hill was on his way to North Asia and that he would be holding discussions with governments in the region.(와싱턴 포스트) North Korea Says Earlier Disclosure Was Enough By CHOE SANG-HUN and STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: January 5, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Friday that it had already explained enough about its nuclear programs to meet a deadline for declaring its nuclear activities, saying the information was in a nuclear declaration it prepared in November and gave to the United States. The statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry on Friday was carried by the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s voice to the outside world. It was the country’s first official pronouncement after it missed a Dec. 31 deadline to disable its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and, according to other nations involved in six-nation talks, failed to provide a full list of its nuclear activities, including weapons, facilities and fissile material. The statement said that North Korea had already conducted “enough discussions” with the United States officials after they demanded more negotiations on its November draft declaration. Using the abbreviation of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Foreign Ministry said, “As far as the nuclear declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is concerned, the D.P.R.K. has done what it should do.” In Washington, officials disputed North Korea’s claims, saying the government in Pyongyang had not yet provided a declaration. They muted their criticism, however, and said that issue had not reached an impasse. “The North Koreans know what’s expected of them and what the rest of the parties are looking for, and that is a full and complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activity,” said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. “They know that.” The chief American negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, left Washington on Friday en route to China, where the status of North Korea’s adherence to its commitments to dismantle its nuclear weapons program will be the focus of a new round of negotiations. An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation, played down the North Korean statement, saying it followed a pattern of public posturing in advance of new talks. Since the passing of the deadline, agreed on in October, the United States, South Korea and Japan have criticized the North and called for details on how much plutonium it had produced at Yongbyon, whether it had provided nuclear assistance to Syria and what it had done with tons of aluminum tubes it had bought from Russia, the type that could be used to build centrifuges to enrich uranium. The State Department’s spokesman, Sean McCormack, said that the United States and the other countries involved in the talks had not reacted more strongly to the missed deadline because foreign nuclear experts were continuing their work to dismantle the Yongbyon plant, hoping through that work to learn more about aspects of North Korea’s nuclear program. “We’re breaking new ground here,” Mr. McCormack said. “This hasn’t been done before.” Earlier in the day, North Korea also renewed its threat to bolster its “war deterrent,” a phrase it uses for its nuclear arsenal. The North, with one of the world’s largest standing armies, usually threatens to bolster its deterrent when it feels international pressure in crucial negotiations. North Korea has acknowledged building bombs with plutonium, but has denied pursuing an alternative weapons program using enriched uranium. In the October deal that North Korea struck with the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, it promised to disable its nuclear facilities and give a full list of its nuclear programs in exchange for one million tons of heavy fuel oil, or its economic equivalent, and diplomatic concessions. It has so far received 150,000 tons of oil and 5,010 tons of steel products to renovate its aging power plants. On Friday, North Korea accused the United States and other countries of delaying the fulfillment of their commitments to provide the aid and remove the North from American terrorism and trade blacklists. “We still hold hope that the Oct. 3 agreement will be implemented smoothly if all countries participating in the six-party talks make sincere efforts based on the principle of action for action,” the statement said. North Korea said the disablement work at Yongbyon was “completed within the technologically possible scope as of Dec. 31.” But since the aid delivery “has not been done even 50 percent,” the North had to “adjust the speed of the nuclear disablement process,” it said. The work of unloading spent fuel rods from the North’s nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, a crucial part of the disablement, will take an additional 100 days, it said. Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, and Steven Lee Myers from Washington.(뉴욕 타임스)