Posted on 02/24/2003 3:34:33 PM PST by RCW2001
SEOUL, Feb 24 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell issued a stern warning to North Korea Monday to abandon any plans it may have to produce nuclear weapons as Seoul prepared to swear in a new president and Pyongyang denounced US war plans.
Washington believes Pyongyang already has enough plutonium for one or two bombs, but fears that it could rapidly produce more by reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods stored at its Yongbyon nuclear complex north of Pyongyang.
"I cannot emphasize enough how seriously all of us would view any move by North Korea toward reprocessing of the spent fuel rods and production of nuclear weapons," he told reporters in Beijing before heading to South Korea where he will attend Tuesday's inauguration of new president Roh Moo-Hyun.
Experts say the spent fuel rods could produce enough plutonium for six or more nuclear weapons in a matter of months.
The rods were sealed in cooling ponds under a 1994 accord freezing North Korea's plutonium producing nuclear programme which collapsed in October following North Korea's admission that it had embarked on a separate nuclear programme based on enriched uranium.
In retaliation, Washington cut off fuel supplies to North Korea and Pyongyang responded by expelling UN inspectors, pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and announcing it was reactivating the mothballed Yongbyon plant.
In China, Powell was hoping to encourage Beijing to intervene more forcefully in the nuclear crisis and to support Washington's demands for a multilateral framework to resolve the crisis. Apparently he met with limited success in talks with President Jiang Zemin, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and leader-in-waiting Hu Jintao.
"China hopes the United States and the DPRK (North Korea) will conduct direct dialogues as soon as possible," the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Hu as saying.
The United States advocates a tough line on North Korea's nuclear violations, and has ruled out direct talks, urging Pyongyang first to dismantle its nuclear programmes.
Powell, who reached Seoul late Monday, will meet new president Roh, who opposes the US hardline policy and has embraced his predecessor Kim Dae-Jung's policy of engagement with Pyongyang.
On the eve of Powell's arrival, Roh urged the United States to view the bankrupt Stalinist regime as a partner rather than a criminal.
US President George W. Bush branded North Korea an outlaw state last month and his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has referred to Pyongyang as a "terrorist" regime.
"North Korea was opening up and ... is already changing," Roh told Newsweek magazine.
"If we give them what they desperately want -- regime security, normal treatment and economic assistance -- they will be willing to give up their nuclear ambitions. We should not, therefore, treat them as criminals but as partners in negotiations."
Rodong Sinmun, the North's ruling party newspaper, said Monday stepped up its rhetoric against what it calls US imperialists in the nuclear standoff.
"Once the imperialists come in attack to stifle the DPRK (North Korea) by force, the ten million people and servicepersons should become human bombs to crush them," Rodong said in a dispatch monitored here.
Rodong also condemned major war games planned by South Korean and US troops for next month as "an open challenge and a grave provocation" aimed at igniting a war on the Korean peninsula.
Tens of thousands of US and South Korean troops will stage major military exercises for four weeks from March 4.
The annual drills, codenamed Foal Eagle/RSOI, include mock warfare and the deployment of a US aircraft carrier to waters around the Korean peninsula.
At a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Kuala Lumpur, North Korea has succeeded in watering down a resolution demanding its return to the NPT.
After successful North Korean lobbying, the resolution to be presented to the summit meeting merely notes Pyongyang's withdrawal from the NPT, according to a final draft seen by AFP. However, a North Korean bid to blame the United States for the crisis was rejected.
Translation: If we pay all their bills they will give us another promise they will break when they want something more.
Kim Jung Il is a spoiled brat.
Criticize the Powell/Iraqi time line if you would like. However, when Powell's warning finally becomes a reality in Iraq, I think that "the shock haired moron of N.K." will understand that he can not win in the loooooooooong run.
NK isn't a cakewalk. The country is very hilly and the weather is similiar to Nebraska's - boiling hot in the summer and ball-numbing cold in the winter with LOTS of snow.
Another war with NK would have to be fought entirely by special ops and punishing air strikes. If only that fool Truman had let MacArthur do his job instead of playing commander-in-chief, we wouldn't be sitting here today worrying about that backwards-ass country.
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