N Korea ready for 'war, dialogue'

2003-07-10 10:24

Seoul - A North Korean envoy said on Thursday that his nation was ready for "both war and dialogue" following a report that the communist North has taken a key step towards building nuclear bombs.

"Our basic position is that we want to resolve the (nuclear) issue peacefully," negotiator Kim Ryong Song said before talks with South Korean delegates in Seoul. "But if outside forces ignore our position and try to use force, we will face them boldly and show our strength."

Kim urged cooperation between the South and North to prevent war on the Korean Peninsula amid a crisis over the North's suspected development of atomic bombs. He also issued a defiant warning to the United States, although he did not mention South Korea's chief ally by name.

"Throughout history, our nation has been harassed by foreign invaders," Kim said. "We will no longer succumb to foreign coercion and we are fully ready to launch counterattacks. We are ready for both war and dialogue."

He recited a Korean adage: "If your fists are weak, you can use them only to wipe your tears."

Kim's South Korean counterpart, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, said a solution to the nuclear issue required the participation of the international community, not only inter-Korean cooperation.

"National cooperation is OK, but it should not be national cooperation in a cave," Jeong said. South Korea wants North Korea to agree to multilateral talks on how to stop the North's nuclear development, but the North prefers one-on-one contact with the United States, which it views as its main enemy.

The opening of the cabinet-level talks was overshadowed by revelations by South Korea's intelligence agency that North Korea has reprocessed a small portion of its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. The procedure yields plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Ko Young-koo, director of Seoul's National Intelligence Service, also told the National Assembly on Wednesday that North Korean scientists conducted 70 tests of high explosives used to trigger nuclear blasts.

Local media, quoting lawmakers who attended Ko's closed-door parliamentary hearing, said the tests were conducted between 1997 and last September. South Korea earlier said North Korea conducted 70 similar tests between 1983 and 1993.

Reprocessing all the North's 8 000 rods could yield enough plutonium for several atomic bombs, adding to the North's suspected arsenal of one or two nuclear bombs, experts say.

Since April, North Korea has claimed that it had all but finished reprocessing the rods. Until now, both US and South Korean officials have expressed doubt about the North Korean claim, speculating that it might be a bluff to extract concessions at the negotiating table.

South Korea receives much of its intelligence on North Korea from the United States, which uses satellites and surveillance aircraft to gather information.

About 50 elderly South Koreans marched to the Seoul hotel hosting Thursday's meeting, chanting "Stop North Korea's nuclear programme!"

The protesters carried two large imitation North Korean missiles, and burned two North Korean flags. Police stopped them outside the hotel, and no serious clash was reported.

The North Korean delegation arrived on Wednesday and was scheduled to leave on Saturday.

- AP