Text of North Korean letter to IAEA

BBC, Friday, 27 December, 2002

The "full text" of a letter sent by Yi Che-son, director of the North Korean General Department of Atomic Energy, to notify IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei of the decision to expel the IAEA inspectors staying in North Korea was reported by Reuters news agency. It reads:

"I am writing to inform you of the follow-up steps, now that the freeze on our nuclear facilities has been released, as was notified to you through my letter of December 14.

As was already informed, the government of the DPRK has made a decision to release the freeze of the nuclear facilities that the DPRK has frozen under the DPRK-USA Agreed Framework premised on annual delivery of 500,000 metric tons of HFO, and immediately resume the operation and construction of the nuclear facilities needed for generating electricity as a counter-measure to the substantial breakdown of the Agreed Framework by the US with the halt of the HFO delivery, followed by its designation of the DPRK as the "axis of evil" and the target for the "nuclear pre-emptive strike".

Accordingly, we will resume once-suspended construction of the atomic energy power plants and will embark on preparation to operate the radiochemical laboratory as a preparatory step to secure safe storage of [a] large quantity of spent-fuel rods that would come out once these power plants are in operation.

It is for this sake that we will soon be prepared for the operation of the radiochemical laboratory.

I believe, with the releasing of the freeze on our nuclear facilities, the mission of the IAEA inspectors in Nyongbyon to monitor the freeze of the nuclear facilities under the DPRK-USA Agreed Framework, has now automatically come to its end.

According to paragraph 3, article 1 of the DPRK-USA Agreed Framework, the DPRK is to allow the IAEA to monitor the freeze on graphite moderate reactors and related facilities during the period of their freeze and renders cooperation to the agency for that purpose.

I think you are fully aware of this.

Therefore, the residing of the inspectors in our country under these circumstances goes against the above article of the DPRK-USA Agreed Framework.

I hereby inform you of the decision of the government of the DPRK to let the inspectors leave the DPRK since there is no justification for them to remain here and ask you to take necessary steps immediately."

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S. Koreans Shrug Off Nuclear Threat

Many believe the U.S. poses a bigger danger than the communist North. The young tend to view the crisis as a White House creation.

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

SEOUL -- When Lee Jin Ju pauses to think about the nuclear crisis brewing over the Korean peninsula, she knows exactly whom she fears.

"George Bush," replies the 22-year-old accounting student without missing a beat. "He's a war maniac."

Lee doesn't like North Korea's Kim Jong Il much, either. "But we're not afraid of him. He's a Korean like us. Even if he does get the bomb, he's not going to use it against us."

This is a sentiment echoed by many Koreans -- even some conservatives -- and it is complicating U.S. efforts to forge a consensus on North Korea among its allies. There is a tendency, particularly among the young, to shrug off the current situation as the creation of a hysterical White House. Many South Koreans see their estranged brethren to the north more as objects of pity than of fear, and the Americans less as saviors who defended them against communism than as potential troublemakers.

The news that North Korea was removing surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities got smaller headlines in Monday's newspapers in South Korea than in the United States. Several major papers here played the story below the news of a political party reshuffle. The stock market actually went up in mid-October when it was revealed that North Korea was violating its international agreements on its nuclear program. Only in the last two days have the markets here shown any jitters, and those were mostly attributed to Iraq.

In one more step, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported today that the North Koreans were moving fresh fuel rods into a small, 5-megawatt reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, which had been closed under a 1994 agreement with the United States. The agency also said workers were moving freely in and out of the facility, apparently in preparation to restart it.

Despite North Korea's actions since October to restart its nuclear program, there is no sense of impending crisis in Seoul.

The streets of the South Korean capital throb with neon advertising, the jangle of ringing cell phones, Christmas carols and throngs of people bent on spending money. Stop almost anyone to ask about the North Korean nuclear program, and the response will be a quizzical stare.

"We don't seriously fear there will be a war, and if there will be, the Americans will start it," said Hyun Ho Sang, a 19-year-old college freshman.

Han Sung Joo, a former South Korean foreign minister, says the South Korean government has deliberately kept people ignorant about the danger posed by the North Koreans.

"We have a government that is interested in playing down the threat," Han said. "There is not much interest in explaining how serious it is that North Korea is developing nuclear weapons, and as a result there is a certain insensitivity among the public."

Kim Kyong Won, a former ambassador to the United States and a leading intellectual in the South Korean establishment, says South Koreans do not believe that the North's development of nuclear weapons has anything to do with them.

"The Koreans think there is no need to worry about North Korea developing nuclear weapons," Kim said. "They figure that Kim Jong Il loves life too much to start a war that he will surely lose.... But Bush, on the other hand, is an ascetic and a warrior."

The reaction may be baffling to outsiders with an image of Korea frozen from the 1950-53 war, when more than 1 million people were killed. The perception is that U.S. intervention paved the way for South Korea's current prosperity, sparing its people from the hunger and cold that now grip the North.

But the official version of history is challenged by many South Koreans, who increasingly question the U.S. role, past and present, in keeping the peace.

The victory in last week's presidential election of left-of-center labor lawyer Roh Moo Hyun has emboldened those who favor more independence from the United States in foreign policy and has given rise to a mood of giddy nationalism.

Many South Koreans say they do not believe President Bush's repeated assertions that the United States does not intend to attack North Korea. They were rattled by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's comments this week suggesting that the United States could wage simultaneous military campaigns against Iraq and North Korea.

"It's all a little confusing. We don't know what to believe. Bush does not make clear his intentions," said Ha Ji Yun, a 26-year-old civil servant who works with South Korea's conservative opposition party. "That's why we are more afraid of the Americans than the North Koreans."

Although attitudes toward the United States have hardened, feelings about North Korea are ambivalent. South Koreans tend to view North Koreans less as enemies than as bothersome relatives. And as with family members, the South Koreans feel free to complain about them but bristle when the criticism comes from outsiders -- hence the anger expressed here when Bush characterized North Korea as part of an "axis of evil."

Outgoing President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" has brought a stream of cultural, sporting and economic exchanges. For the first time this year, the South Korean Defense Ministry decided not to designate North Korea as its "main enemy" in an annual white paper on security issues. It chose not to publish the report at all.

The South Korean government last year gave the North $70.5 million in humanitarian aid, while private parties donated an additional $65 million, according to the Unification Ministry.

Some South Koreans say they are pleased that their fellow Koreans are developing nuclear weapons.

"I think it is good that North Korea has the bomb. One day we will be united and that bomb will be ours. All these other countries have it -- India, Pakistan -- so why not Korea?" said Won Hye Jun, a 22-year-old pianist.

Increasingly, South Koreans say they are not as fearful of North Korea as they are of Korea's traditional conquerors, China and Japan.

Asked about the bomb, many South Koreans cite a novel called "The Rose of Sharon Blooms Again." The book is still a huge seller nearly a decade after its publication during a crisis resolved by the 1994 agreement, under which North Korea froze its nuclear program in exchange for international assistance for its energy industry.

The plot revolves around a South Korean scientist who secretly helps the North Koreans develop a nuclear bomb that is used to fend off Japanese aggression.

Conventional weapons currently pose far more of an immediate threat to South Korea than nuclear weapons. The fear here is that if the United States were to use a surgical strike to try to disable North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility, the North might retaliate by shelling Seoul with conventional weapons. During the height of the previous crisis, North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."

Michael Breen, the Seoul-based author of "The Koreans," says South Koreans shrugged off the threat as more of the bluster for which the North Koreans are famous.

"But the Americans took it literally," Breen recalled. "People were getting telephone calls from their relatives abroad and only then did they start to worry.... It finally got to the point where Koreans were a bit nervous, but even at that their fear was mostly that the Americans would miscalculate."

Chi Jung Nam of The Times' Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.

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Pyongyang denies restarting nuclear program

The Sydney Morning Herald, December 27 2002

North Korea has begun moving fresh fuel rods into a mothballed nuclear reactor at the centre of a diplomatic standoff with the United States, deepening concerns it was preparing to restart facilities that experts say could produce nuclear weapons within months.

North Korea denied its move was a prelude to developing weapons, saying it needed to reactivate the facility to generate electricity.

"Our republic constantly maintains an anti-nuclear, peace-loving position," Radio Pyongyang said. The report was carried by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The communist nation began moving fuel rods on Wednesday into the 5-megawatt reactor at its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, 80 kilometres north of its capital, Pyongyang, said Chun Young-woo, director of the disarmament and nuclear energy division at South Korea's Foreign Ministry.

Chun did not say whether North Korea has actually begun loading fuel into the Soviet-designed reactor. The move was apparently intended to ratchet up pressure on the United States and its allies, which recently cut off oil shipments to North Korea in response to revelations that it had been secretly developing nuclear weapons in violation of an eight-year-old agreement.

Chun cited information from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspectors at the facility.

Earlier this month North Korea announced plans to restart its nuclear facilities, frozen under a 1994 agreement with the United States and its allies. It has removed UN monitoring equipment from the reactor and three other key nuclear facilities.

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told the British Broadcasting Corp that the nuclear watchdog's on-site monitors had seen the North Koreans move some 400 fresh fuel rods on Wednesday.

The agency has three inspectors staying in North Korea visually monitoring the activities at the nuclear facilities. The number of inspectors was increased from two to three this week.

The reactor and three other North Korean nuclear facilities were sealed under the 1994 agreement, which required Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for energy sources provided by the United States and its allies.

North Korea says the dispute can be settled only if Washington agrees to sign a nonaggression treaty. Recent weeks have seen a sharp increase in anti-US rhetoric warning that the situation on the Korean Peninsula was "on the brink of war."

The United States, which is preparing for a possible war against Iraq, is seeking a peaceful settlement to the issue but has ruled out any talks before the communist state gives up its nuclear ambitions.

The three other facilities from which North Korea has removed UN monitoring gear include a storage area holding 8,000 spent fuel rods, a radioactive laboratory used to reprocess spent fuel rods and a plant that makes fuel rods.

The IAEA has said there are no signs of moves by the North Koreans to reprocess spent fuel rods or restart the laboratory.

US officials say that the 8,000 spent fuel rods hold enough weapons-grade plutonium to make several nuclear bombs. North Korea is suspected of already having one or two atomic bombs.

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung said today that his government would never tolerate the North's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, but stressed that the issue should be resolved peacefully through dialogue.

"We must closely cooperate with the United States, Japan and other friendly countries to prevent the situation from further deteriorating into a crisis," Kim told a special Cabinet meeting. His remarks were released to the press by his spokeswoman, Park Sun-sook.

A representative of South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun attended the meeting. Roh, who takes office in February, plans to exchange special envoys with the United States in January to discuss the nuclear standoff.

The standoff has raised fears of another crisis on the Korean Peninsula like one in 1994 that some say nearly led to war. It was defused when North Korea agreed to freeze and eventually dismantle its plutonium-based nuclear program in exchange for energy supplies.

Tensions rose after North Korea revealed to visiting US diplomats in October that it had a new covert nuclear weapons program that uses enriched uranium.

North Korea insists that its decision to restart its reactor was to generate electricity, but US officials say that power to obtained from the reactor is negligible.

AP

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US warns N Korea it can wage war on two fronts

By Peter Spiegel in Washington, Charles Clover in Kuwait and Mark Turner at the United Nations for The Financial Times

Published: December 24 2002

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, yesterday warned North Korea not to feel "emboldened" because of the Bush administration's focus on Iraq. The US military was capable of winning large-scale conflict in two regions if necessary, he said.

North Korea has moved a step closer to harvesting plutonium - potentially enough for several nuclear weapons - by removing seals on 8,000 spent fuel rods at its reactor at Nyongbyon. International observers said the move was inconsistent with North Korea's contention that it simply needs the reactor for electricity generation.

Mr Rumsfeld said: "We are capable of fighting two major regional conflicts. We are capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other. And let there be no doubt about it."

The intensified rhetoric from Washington came as UN weapons inspectors in Iraq began to shift tactics to a more "probing phase" of investigations, readying themselves to begin interviews with Iraqi scientists who have first-hand knowledge of Saddam Hussein's weapons programme.

Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the interviewing of some scientists had begun within the country. He added that plans were being made to take them outside Iraq for questioning, but that preparations were still in the early stages.

"We have first however to identify those who are willing to co-operate with us, those who have critical information that will enable us to succeed," Mr ElBaradei said.

IAEA officials said some of the key scientists had been identified, but sources from the UN weapons inspection commission Unmovic, which deals with non-nuclear issues, suggested they had not yet begun interviews in private rooms.

"We need to be concerned about their safety, either providing them asylum or, if they decide to go back, that their safety and their families are secure," said Mr ElBaradei.

Iraq made moves of its own to prepare for war, saying it would deploy international volunteers as a "human shield" in the event of an invasion. Iraqi officials said the volunteers - whom they expected from the US and Europe as well as from the Arab world - would sit at strategic sites around Iraq to deter allied bombers.

Iraq also shot down an unmanned US Predator drone flying over the southern no-fly zone yesterday morning, although US officials said they did not think the attack, believed to have come from an Iraqi warplane, showed an escalation of hostilities.

"We have lost two other Predators, I believe, to hostile fire in southern Iraq," said General Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. "They attempt to shoot down all our aircraft . . and they got a lucky shot today."

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