| 10.04.2004 The Korea Herald China says N.K. tried to enrich uranium: report For the first time since the North Korean nuclear standoff began nearly two years ago, China has confirmed Pyongyang's intention to conduct uranium enrichment, a Japanese media report says. The topic has been one of the focal points in the six nation disarmament talks it hosts that also involve South Korea, the United States, Japan, and Russia. According to the report, carried by the Tokyo-based Kyodo News Agency, China has told fellow participants in the six-party talks that the North has tried to enrich uranium. Quoting a source involved with the multilateral dialogue, the agency reported out of Washington that China "apparently changed its stance" and informed other members of the talks, including Japan and South Korea, that it believes the North "at least attempted to enrich" uranium. North Korea has consistently denied running a uranium enrichment program, and China has been skeptical about Washington's claim that Pyongyang had such a program. Although Beijing hosts the nuclear talks and has expressed wishes to see a nuclear-weapons free peninsula, it has been "sticking by" its neighbor and communist ally, and to date have been reluctant to accepted the U.S. government's accusations about the North. If it is correct that China has changed its position, that could influence the future direction of the six-party talks, as North Korea could face more pressure to deal with the issue. A senior official at South Korea's Foreign Ministry, however, said Seoul has not been told of any change in stance by Beijing. Adding that the unverified comments could hinder resumption of the currently stalled six-party talks, the official asserted that the momentum of the meetings is still intact. Some analysts here say that one approach for North Korea may be to admit it has a low-concentration enriched uranium program for energy use. According to the Kyodo report, the agency's source said the nuclear black market run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former chief of Pakistan's nuclear program, furnished the North with uranium hexafluoride, a material used in the uranium enrichment process. North Korea also is said to have acquired nuclear technology from Khan, Kyodo said. A source close to the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that Khan provided North Korea with a sample centrifuge and there is sufficient evidence to prove that the North indeed enriched uranium, Kyodo reported. China, an ally of Pakistan, may have changed its stance after receiving information from Islamabad that Khan provided the North with uranium hexafluoride and a centrifuge. Back in October, 2002, the United States announced that North Korea had admitted to senior U.S. officials visiting Pyongyang that it had a uranium enrichment program, which the U.S. said violated the 1994 Agreed Framework for curtailing the North's nuclear program. Highly enriched uranium with concentrations of more than 80 percent can be used to create nuclear weapons, but low-concentration enriched uranium is not suitable for making arms and is often used as fuel at nuclear power plants. ([email protected]) By Choi Soung-ah |
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