N. Korea seeks to refute U.S. claim

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.

In closely held talks, the North Korean government has given 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 when the declaration is made.

If North Korea were to successfully demonstrate that U.S. accusations about the uranium-enrichment program have been wrong, it would be a blow to U.S. intelligence and the Bush administration’s credibility.

The U.S. allegations of a large-scale uranium program led to the collapse of a Clinton-era agreement under which North Korea had frozen a reactor that produced a different nuclear substance -- plutonium. The move 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 Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential. “Some explanations make sense; some are a bit of a stretch.”

A senior South Korean official said North Korea was attempting to show that the materials it imported were intended for conventional weapons programs and other dual-use projects, not for atomic bombs.

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.