North Korea Orders U.N. Inspectors Out at Once

North Korea on Friday ordered U.N. inspectors off its soil, escalating a confrontation with the United States and its allies and moving an important step closer to a resumption of its nuclear arms program.

In a letter to the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, North Korea said that because it intends to reopen its nuclear facilities and restart a plutonium-reprocessing plant, the inspectors “have no justification to stay in our country any longer.”

In Vienna, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, decried the move and insisted that the three inspectors remain, for now, at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex. Departure of the inspectors “would practically bring an end to our ability to monitor [North Korea’s] nuclear program, or assess its nature,” ElBaradei said.

The inspectors have been in the country as part of a 1994 agreement under which North Korea eschewed a nuclear weapons program in exchange for energy assistance.

North Korea’s demand was the latest in a series of moves that have been thrust on a Bush administration that is preoccupied with preparations for a possible war against Iraq.

Although the United States has downplayed the danger of North Korea’s nuclear actions, Friday’s moves appeared to get the attention of the rest of the world, which in turn may pressure the United States into engaging the Asian country.

The difficult judgment for international players is how to deal with North Korea, which is a rogue country when it comes to nuclear proliferation but also deeply impoverished, with a civilian population that has suffered starvation and repression at the hands of the regime.

There is one school of thought, favored by the Bush administration, that rewarding those who act up sends the wrong message. But others suggest that refusing to have any dialogue with the country could have long-term repercussions throughout the region, where U.S. allies such as South Korea and Japan are at direct risk.

The White House insisted again Friday that it will make no concessions to a regime that is violating the agreement to give up its nuclear program.

“We will not negotiate in response to threats or broken commitments,” Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said in Crawford, Texas, near where President Bush is spending the holidays. He described the expulsion demand as “yet another violation” by a country that he said has been guilty of several breaches of its commitments to halt its nuclear effort.

At the same time, U.S. officials sought to play down the potential for a military confrontation and said they believe the solution lies in diplomatic pressure from the United States and allies in the region.

Washington plans to bring up the North Korea issue at a meeting of IAEA officials in January, a U.S. official said. If the problem is not resolved, the United States will take the matter to the U.N. Security Council, the official said.

Experts said the expulsion of the inspectors would mean that North Korea could draw plutonium from its long-monitored inventory of spent fuel rods without being observed and build as many as five new nuclear weapons, perhaps as soon as next summer. They warned that such a step would destabilize northeast Asia and encourage other countries around the world to cast aside their commitments not to embark on nuclear programs.

“This will shatter the system of treaties and restraints,” said Joseph Cirincione, director of nonproliferation studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

North Korea is moving to restart the nuclear program partly in hopes of forcing U.S. concessions, and partly out of a desire to build a nuclear arsenal to ensure the regime’s security, U.S. officials and experts say.

The impoverished country would like an increase in aid, including fuel oil supplies that were cut off in the fall after North Korea disclosed it had been pursuing a secret uranium-enrichment program. Uranium, like plutonium, can be used to build a nuclear bomb.

But some experts said the speed of North Korea’s recent steps suggests that the Stalinist regime may be more interested in building the arsenal than in squeezing additional concessions from the United States. If concessions were the goal, North Korea would probably be moving more slowly and allowing more time for pressure to build on the United States, they said.

Joel Wit, a Korea specialist who was an official in the Clinton administration, said the expulsion order marks “a big change.” He said the rapid pace of North Korea’s moves makes it “more and more likely that they’re not interested in negotiations.”

He said that if the North Koreans take the next step and restart the reprocessing plant, “we can conclude they’re definitely not interested in talking.”

Currently, there are three inspectors at the North Korean nuclear complex, about 55 miles north of the capital, Pyongyang. They are a Chinese woman, a Vietnamese woman and a Lebanese man.

Since 1994, when North Korea suspended its nuclear program in exchange for the U.S.-brokered international energy aid package, two inspectors have been making daily inspections of the locks and cameras that the U.N. has set up to ensure there is no activity at the complex.

But starting a week ago, North Korea began to cut the locks and disable the cameras.

The goal of ElBaradei’s current approach is to give the North Koreans a chance to back down without losing face and allow the inspectors to continue to do their job, said an IAEA official who asked to remain unidentified.

Other nations joined in the criticism of North Korea.

South Korean President-elect Roh Moo Hyun, who had promised during his campaign to treat North Korea with patience, expressed exasperation Friday and hinted that further joint ventures could be delayed by North Korea’s behavior.

“If North Korea continues with this action which is not backed by international opinion, it would lose support from public opinion in the South,” Roh said.

A series of high-profile ventures between North and South Korea appear to be endangered by the rising tensions.

Amid the angry exchanges over the inspectors, the U.S.-U.N. command that oversees the 49-year-old cease-fire on the Korean peninsula accused the North Koreans of bringing machine guns into the DMZ six times in the last month.

A statement from the command said South Korean soldiers saw North Korean troops set up the machine guns during the day and take them down at night. On Monday, North Korea refused to accept a written inquiry from the command about the incidents.

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Rubin reported from Vienna and Richter from Washington. Times staff writers Barbara Demick in Seoul and James Gerstenzang in Crawford contributed to this report.