N. Korea says it showed U.S. group its 'N-deterrent'

An unofficial delegation of U.S. experts visiting North Korea has examined what the Pyongyang government said was its "nuclear deterrent," apparently providing the first confirmation that Pyongyang has produced the key ingredient for nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials said they have received only initial details of the visit, and they cautioned that they don't yet know the full extent of the facilities and materials examined by the delegation. But one official said it appeared the delegation had been shown what the North Koreans described as recently reprocessed plutonium.

According to this account, North Korean officials told the experts the material has not been placed in a nuclear device and that it was prepared to "freeze" it in order to resolve the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

U.S. intelligence has long estimated that North Korea during the 1980s had obtained enough weapons-grade plutonium for one or two weapons, but that analysis was largely based on guesswork. Moreover, U.S. analysts have not been able to confirm that North Korea had obtained additional plutonium from 8,000 spent fuel rods after ousting U.N. inspectors a year ago from its Yongbyon nuclear facility. No outsiders -- before this delegation -- have visited Yongbyon since the inspectors left.

Two key questions for U.S. officials have been whether North Korea has obtained a steady supply of fissile material for bombs and whether the administration's diplomatic efforts in the past year have restrained Pyongyang from pressing ahead with its nuclear program.

The experts -- a group that included former U.S. officials, congressional aides and a former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico -- told reporters they visited Yongbyon, which is 50 miles north of Pyongyang and contains nuclear reactors and a reprocessing facility. They refused to speak in detail about the five-day trip when they arrived in Beijing Saturday, saying they would disclose their findings to the U.S. government.

But, in a Foreign Ministry statement carried by the official North Korean news agency, Pyongyang said it had shown its "nuclear deterrent force" to the group, which was headed by Stanford University scholar John W. Lewis.

"If the visit of Lewis and the nuclear specialist and their party helped the U.S. even a bit to drop its ambiguous view on (North Korea's) nuclear activities, it would serve as a substantial foundation for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue between (North Korea) and the U.S. in the future," the statement said.

"The permission given by (North Korea) to visit the facility was aimed to give Americans an opportunity to confirm the reality by themselves," the statement added.

Siegfried Hecker, a metallurgist who headed Los Alamos from 1985 to 1997, plans to testify publicly about the trip Jan. 20 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a senior Senate staffer said Saturday. Lewis and another team member, Charles Pritchard, may also testify. Pritchard resigned from the State Department in August after failing to persuade the administration to negotiate directly with North Korea.

U.S. officials said the visit appears designed to pressure the Bush administration as the United States and its allies struggle to arrange a second round of six-nation talks to resolve the crisis. North Korea has repeatedly said it would freeze its program -- as it did during the Clinton administration -- but the Bush administration has insisted it agree to a verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear programs, including a clandestine effort to produce highly enriched uranium.

"We know exactly what the North Koreans are doing with these guys," said a senior administration official. "It's the same old game."

The Foreign Relations Committee is also pressing administration officials to testify on the status of the six-nation talks, the Senate aide said.

The divide between the United States and North Korea is illustrated by a detailed statement provided by a senior North Korean diplomat recently to the Center for National Policy, a Washington- based nonpartisan think tank. The diplomat, Li Gun, outlined what he called "the order of simultaneous action."

First, the United States must resume shipments of heavy oil and greatly expand food aid, and in exchange North Korea would renounce nuclear intentions. Once the United States provides security assurances in writing and provides energy compensation, North Korea would freeze its facilities and allow inspections of its nuclear material. North Korean missiles would be restrained after the United States and Japan establish diplomatic relations with North Korea. Finally, North Korea's programs would be dismantled only after the United States and its allies finish building light-water reactors in North Korea -- a program suspended by the Bush administration.

By contrast, Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week that North Korea must issue a statement declaring it will verifiably and permanently end its nuclear programs before the United States would offer its ideas for security assurances.

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