N. Korea Offers Evidence to Rebut Uranium Claims

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 10, 2007; Page A01

North Korea is providing evidence to the United States aimed at proving that it never intended to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, undermining a key U.S. intelligence finding, South Korean and U.S. officials said this week.

In closely held talks, the North Korean government has granted U.S. experts access to equipment and documents to make its case, in preparation for declaring the extent of its nuclear activities before the end of the year. North Korean officials hope the United States will simultaneously lift sanctions against Pyongyang as the declaration is made.

f North Korea successfully demonstrates that U.S. accusations about the uranium-enrichment program are wrong, it will be a blow to U.S. intelligence and the Bush administration's credibility.

The U.S. charges of a large-scale uranium program led to the collapse of a Clinton-era agreement that had frozen a North Korean reactor that produced a different nuclear substance -- plutonium. That development freed North Korea to use the plutonium route toward gathering the material needed for a nuclear weapon. Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test last year, detonating a plutonium-based device, and has built a plutonium stockpile that experts estimate could yield eight to 10 nuclear weapons.

"They have shown us some things, and we are working it through," a senior U.S. official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential. "We are having a discussion about things. Some explanations make sense; some are a bit of a stretch."

"This is now in the process of being clarified," a senior South Korean official said in an interview. "The North Koreans are now ready to prove that they did not intend to make a uranium-enrichment program by importing some materials."

He said North Korea is attempting to show that the materials it imported -- including 150 tons of aluminum tubes from Russia in June 2002 -- were intended for conventional weapons programs and other dual-use projects, not for weapons of mass destruction.

The South Korean official said North Korea's efforts mark an important shift. "In the past, North Korea simply said no," he said. "Now they are trying to convince us."

U.S. intelligence first concluded in July 2002 that North Korea had embarked on a large-scale program to produce highly enriched uranium for use in weapons, saying it was constructing a facility that would be fully operational by 2005. "We discovered that, contrary to an agreement they had with the United States, they're enriching uranium, with a desire of developing a weapon," President Bush said in a November 2002 news conference.

U.S. officials have also asserted that a senior North Korean official admitted the existence of the program in an October 2002 meeting in Pyongyang between officials from both nations. North Korea later denied that any such admission took place.

After the administration accused Pyongyang of violating a 1994 agreement struck with President Bill Clinton to freeze its plutonium facilities, North Korea ejected U.N. inspectors from the country and restarted its plutonium reactor, allowing it to stockpile its weapons-grade material.

For years afterward, during the impasse over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, the Bush administration insisted that North Korea first admit having the uranium facility, rejecting arguments from other nations that it was more important to freeze the plutonium facility in order to halt the nation's production. After North Korea tested the nuclear device, the administration agreed to a deal in which Pyongyang froze and then disabled the plutonium facility in exchange for international aid.

Plutonium and highly enriched uranium provide different routes to building nuclear weapons. The North Koreans were able to reprocess 8,000 spent fuel rods -- which had been held in a cooling pond and monitored by U.N. inspectors under the 1994 agreement -- to acquire the weapons-grade plutonium. A uranium program would have required Pyongyang to build a facility with thousands of centrifuges to obtain the highly enriched uranium needed for a weapon. Iran's nuclear program, which the United States alleges is intended for weapons, involves enriched uranium.

The administration this year began to back off its earlier assertions that North Korea has an active program to enrich uranium. In February, the chief U.S. intelligence officer for North Korea, Joseph R. DeTrani, told Congress that while there is "high confidence" that North Korea acquired materials that could be used in a "production-scale" uranium program, there is only "mid-confidence" that such a program exists.

David Albright, a former U.N. inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said in a report this year that there is "ample evidence" that North Korea was trying to put together a small-scale research program involving a few dozen centrifuges but that claims of a large-scale effort were flawed.

Albright said yesterday that the tubes acquired by North Korea needed to be cut in half and shaped in order to be used as the outer casings of centrifuges. If Pyongyang proves that the tubes were untouched, he said, it could "shatter the argument" that they were meant for a uranium program.

But Albright said it is difficult to see how North Korea could explain away a set of centrifuges that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said a Pakistani nuclear-smuggling network provided to Pyongyang. "I think the North Koreans are making a big mistake" if they deny they had any interest in uranium enrichment, he said. "They are going to create a lot of trouble if they stick to this."

N. Korea Offers Evidence to Rebut Uranium Claims - washingtonpost.com

米国に「証拠」提示か 北朝鮮、核開発を否定 米紙報道

　米ワシントン・ポスト紙は１０日、米韓両政府の高官の話として、北朝鮮が高濃縮ウラン（ＨＥＵ）による核開発は存在しないとする「証拠」を米国に提示し始めた、と報じた。ウラン濃縮に使う遠心分離器に必要なアルミ管の大量輸入は認めた上で、通常兵器など別の用途で使ったことを示そうとしているという。

　北朝鮮の説明について米当局者は同紙に「ある部分は筋が通っているが、少し無理もある」と話したという。また北朝鮮は、非核化の第２段階として行う核計画の「完全な申告」に向け、部品や文書を直接調べることを米側に認めたという。

　ＨＥＵによる核開発疑惑は０２年に浮上。米国は同年１０月の米朝協議において北朝鮮が計画の存在を認めたと判断した。北朝鮮はその後は計画の存在を否定したが、北朝鮮の核施設を凍結していた米朝枠組み合意の崩壊につながった。

　同紙は、もし米側の主張が誤りで、北朝鮮の説明が正しければ、米情報機関やブッシュ政権の信頼性に打撃を与えると指摘している。

asahi.com：米国に「証拠」提示か　北朝鮮、核開発を否定　米紙報道 - 国際

拉致問題支援を訴え 特定失踪者家族ら真相究明願う集会

　北朝鮮による拉致の可能性が否定できない特定失踪（しっそう）者問題の真相究明を願う集会が十日、小浜市内で開かれ、嶺南地方の被害者家族が支援と調査の進展を訴えた。

　集会で、小浜市田烏の山下春夫さん＝当時（２８）＝の兄・寛久さん（８７）は、失踪当時の現場の状況を説明しながら「春夫は毎日手を合わせて待ち続けているだろう」と話した。

　敦賀市縄間の山下貢さん＝当時（３９）＝の母・きよ子さん（８４）は「北朝鮮は『拉致問題は解決した』の繰り返し。特定失踪者の解決はまだ遠い道のり。これからも体の続く限り頑張ります」。若狭町三方の宮内和也さん＝当時（３２）＝の父・和見さん（７１）は「よその家族を見るにつけ、ふびんでならない。家族も高齢化が進んでいる。みなさんの温かいご支援を」と声を震わせた。

　この後、佐藤勝巳・北朝鮮に拉致された日本人を救う全国協議会会長と荒木和博・特定失踪者問題調査会代表が、拉致問題の現状や本質について講演した。　（白山泉）

中日新聞:拉致問題支援を訴え　特定失踪者家族ら真相究明願う集会:福井(CHUNICHI Web)