North Korea Ratchets Up Its Nuclear Efforts

North Korea took another serious step toward reactivating its nuclear program Sunday, disabling surveillance devices and breaking locks on a storage facility for some 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Plutonium can be extracted from the rods and processed for use in nuclear weapons.

The move came a day after the IAEA, which monitors nuclear activities for the United Nations and has its headquarters in Vienna, announced that North Korea had broken seals and disabled monitoring devices on a previously mothballed nuclear reactor.

North Korea’s actions triggered a new round of international rebukes, expressions of worry and a flurry of weekend diplomacy as concerned Bush administration officials weighed how to respond even as they consider a war against Iraq for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke by phone with his counterparts in China, South Korea and Russia on Saturday and Japan and others on Sunday, said Louis Fintor, a State Department spokesman. U.S. officials expressed deep concern about the developments and appeared pessimistic that a quick diplomatic solution could be reached.

“North Korea’s action today, disrupting the arrangements for IAEA monitoring of the spent fuel rods, raises further serious concerns and belies North Korea’s announced justification to produce electricity,” Fintor said. He urged the nation to replace the equipment. South Korea and Japan issued similar messages.

North Korea, in a statement from its official news agency, attributed its actions to “U.S. imperialist policy,” specifically citing the recent decision by Washington and its allies to suspend fuel donations to the secretive regime. The donations were being made under a now-collapsing 1994 agreement in which North Korea pledged to repudiate its nuclear ambitions in exchange for energy assistance.

The United States blocked the oil assistance this fall after North Korea acknowledged that it had a secret uranium-enrichment program. Enriched uranium, like processed plutonium, is used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

North Korea said Sunday that restarting its nuclear program was necessary in order to produce electricity because the U.S. “unilaterally abandoned its commitment to supply heavy oil.”

Nuclear experts, however, give no credence to North Korea’s explanation that it unsealed the reactor to generate electricity. The 5-megawatt plant creates too little power for electricity purposes, but its spent fuel can be used to make weapons-grade nuclear material. The plant was used in the 1980s and early 1990s for that purpose, according to IAEA officials.

Mohammed Baradei, director-general of the IAEA, criticized North Korea’s moves, saying they were “of great nonproliferation concern.”

Pyongyang said Dec. 12 that it would reopen its shuttered nuclear facilities and asked the IAEA to remove its monitoring equipment, but there were hopes in Washington that the often-provocative regime was bluffing and would move slowly to follow through on the threat.

Pyongyang’s quick move to actually remove the monitoring equipment appeared calculated to ramp up pressure on the United States and Asian neighbors at a crucial juncture.

Washington is focused on its showdown with Iraq over what U.S. officials say is Baghdad’s refusal to give up weapons of mass destruction; meanwhile, South Korea on Thursday elected a new president, Roh Moo Hyun, whose resolve to seek improved relations with North Korea will surely be tested by Pyongyang’s latest action.

“Their whole strategy is to force Washington to talk to them, and they are coming on hard and fast,” said a Western diplomat in Seoul. “It is classic brinkmanship.”

The downward spiral in recent weeks is reminiscent of 1993-94, when North Korea’s nuclear ambitions nearly led the Clinton administration to launch preemptive strikes. The crisis was resolved by the 1994 deal, brokered by former President Carter.

The challenge from North Korea, an unpredictable, totalitarian regime fighting for its survival, is potentially more explosive than that of Iraq. The CIA believes North Korea might have already produced one or two nuclear weapons. In addition, Pyongyang is thought to have an array of chemical and biological weapons and is known to have enough conventional artillery near the demilitarized zone to inflict devastating casualties on South Korea and on the U.S. troops stationed there. Its missiles could also reach Japan.

Outside experts have been urging the administration to find a face-saving way to talk to the North Koreans. But White House officials have insisted that the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program is a prerequisite to negotiations. North Korea has hinted that it would be willing to negotiate and would seek concessions such as a nonaggression pact.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined those urging the administration to engage North Korea in a dialogue.

“We cannot take an attitude, I believe, in which we just simply say they are wrong -- that is, the North Koreans,” he said. “We’re all going to have to talk, talk continuously to South Korea, to North Korea, to Japan, be heavily engaged.”

Lugar acknowledged that it would be “a tough thing” to focus on North Korea “while we’re dealing with Iraq.” But he urged the White House to “do two things ... simultaneously.”

On the same program, the outgoing chair of the committee, Sen. Joseph L. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), said, “This is a greater danger immediately to U.S. interests at this very moment, in my view, than Saddam Hussein is.”

South Korea’s incoming president must also figure out how to deal with Pyongyang’s actions. “They are of course testing Roh Moo Hyun,” said Kim Tae Woo, a North Korea specialist at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. “We now have a president-elect who claims to be sympathetic to the North Koreans, and they would like to see how he will react. They are going step by step, pushing harder each time.”

There was no immediate comment from Roh, who had taken the weekend off after the election and who has not yet named a transition team. However, the South Korean government and the ruling Millennium Democratic Party urged the North to reseal the facilities before it is too late for negotiations.

North Korea has several nuclear installations at Yongbyon, 55 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital, whose activities were frozen under the 1994 agreement. Of concern are three facilities: the 5-megawatt reactor, the facility for storing spent nuclear fuel rods and a reprocessing plant to extract the plutonium from the rods. Plutonium can be extracted from the rods and reprocessed into weapons-grade material within weeks, experts say.

“If they remove the seals from the fuel rods, that is really a critical action that could push us into a crisis,” said Kim, the analyst.

The rods are stored in canisters in a cooling pool and until this weekend were under 24-hour camera surveillance monitored by two IAEA inspectors who live at the site to ensure compliance with the ’94 accord.

“If they lift the seals on these canisters,” Biden said, “they’re going to be able to build four to five additional nuclear weapons within months if they begin that reprocessing operation -- that’s within a year.”

The inspectors reported that the seals attached to the locks at the sites had been broken and that the cameras had been turned away and covered, said Mark Gwozdecky, the chief spokesman for the agency. However, the inspectors themselves had not been asked to leave. They were in regular contact with the Vienna headquarters.

Shim Yoon Jo, an official at South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, urged North Korea to restore the seals and monitoring equipment.

“We will apply diplomatic pressure through close cooperation with the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the international community so that North Korea takes measures for restoration,” Shim said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told a news conference that North Korea’s moves were “extremely regrettable.”

“We are very concerned,” she said.

*

Demick reported from Seoul, Rubin from Vienna and Shiver from Washington.