N. Korea Quits Treaty to Halt Spread of Nuclear Arms; Inspection at Issue : Weapons: Move deals blow to U.S. efforts on controls. Peninsula tensions are likely to rise.

In a move that promises to dramatically increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea today declared that it will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The move deals a major blow to U.S. efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and threatens to overturn a historic agreement by North and South Korea in December, 1991, to ban nuclear weapons from the peninsula.

It is the first time any nation has pulled out of the pact, which for a quarter-century has been one of the pillars of global arms control efforts. Only last year, China and France announced they would join the treaty, and North Korea itself, a latecomer to the pact, agreed for the first time to accept international inspections.

“The withdrawal from the (treaty) is a well-justified defensive measure against the nuclear war maneuvers of the United States and the unjust act” of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Demands by the IAEA for special inspections of two sites at Yongbyon, near Pyongyang, precipitated the decision. After agency inspectors last year were shown a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant capable of producing plutonium, the IAEA claimed that data provided by North Korea indicated that it may have produced more plutonium--which can be used to make nuclear weapons--than it had declared.

North Korea--which has denied any intention of developing or producing nuclear weapons and said the two sites are non-nuclear military installations--accused the IAEA of abandoning neutrality to join the United States in “anti-North Korean maneuvers.”

Today’s decision was made by the Central People’s Committee, North Korea’s equivalent of a Cabinet.

On Feb. 25, the international agency gave North Korea an ultimatum to allow inspections of the two sites within one month with an implied threat that failure to comply could lead to the U.N. Security Council imposing sanctions on North Korea.

Today’s announcement was certain to trigger a Security Council reaction, early reports here said.

In South Korea, the government called an emergency Cabinet meeting but had made no public statement.

But South Korean media quoted a high government official as saying: “This action clearly demonstrates North Korea’s determination to develop nuclear weapons. The question now has left the realm of the IAEA and is now one for the U.N. Security Council. It has become a issue of maintaining international peace.”

In Washington, a White House spokesman said Thursday night that the Clinton Administration would have no immediate comment on North Korea’s action.

CIA Director R. James Woolsey testified in Congress last month that the U.S. intelligence community now believes North Korea may have secretly stored enough material to make at least one nuclear weapon.

“It is very unfortunate,” said Arata Fujii, of Japan’s Foreign Ministry’s Northeast Asia division in Tokyo. “They (the North Koreans) are turning away from international society. We hope they will reconsider their decision.”

Another Japanese official suggested Japan’s greatest contribution might be to approach China.

“China is the only country that could use its military and political influence on North Korea,” the official said. China, which maintains a military agreement with North Korea, doesn’t want to see a militant North Korea emerge.

Both South Korea and Japan would face a direct threat if Pyongyang developed nuclear weapons that could be delivered to targets in either country by Scud missiles. The United States, while sharing those concerns, is worried principally because of the effect that a North Korean nuclear arsenal would have upon developing nations that might be tempted to follow this example.

In what had been regarded as a domestic propaganda move, Kim Jong Il, commander of North Korea’s 1-million-strong armed forces and heir-apparent to his father, President Kim Il Sung, 81, on Monday put North Korea on a “semi-war” footing to protest the start of an annual U.S.-South Korea military exercise called “Team Spirit.” In the past, the exercise has been used as an excuse to suspend a dialogue with South Korea that has been going on for two decades with few results.

But today, North Korea cited the exercise as a justification for its withdrawal from the treaty.

The treaty requires all signatories to submit to inspections of nuclear facilities. Non-nuclear nations pledge to refrain from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees from nuclear nations that they will not be subjected to nuclear threats or attacks.

Times staff writers Leslie Helm, in Tokyo, and Jim Mann, in Washington, contributed to this report.