N. Korea: Nuclear Weapons Cut Costs

SEOUL -- In one of its most candid statements yet about its nuclear program, North Korea said Monday that it is developing atomic weapons to reduce the size and cost of its conventional armed forces.

The statement, distributed by the North’s official news service out of the capital, Pyongyang, was unusual in that it alluded to the economic difficulties of the isolated Communist state and included an unequivocal admission of its nuclear program.

When U.S. officials reported last fall that North Korea had a clandestine nuclear program, the regime claimed indignantly that it was purely designed to generate electricity for the impoverished nation.

But Monday, in a bulletin monitored in Seoul, the North’s KCNA news service said: “The intention to build up a nuclear deterrent is not aimed to threaten and blackmail others but to reduce conventional weapons.” The agency also said North Korea hoped “to channel manpower resources and funds into economic construction and the betterment of people’s living.”

North Korea -- one of the world’s poorest nations, and with only 22 million people -- has the world’s fifth-largest armed forces and third-largest army. Roughly 30% of the country’s gross domestic product is devoted to the military, about 10 times the percentage of most countries.

The Bush administration immediately rejected North Korea’s claim to need nuclear weapons to cut defense costs. The White House instead called on Pyongyang to “fully and immediately” give up its nuclear program.

“Perhaps from this glimpse of North Korea acknowledging that its own people suffer as a result of North Korea’s policies, it will help North Korea to now make the right decisions. And the right decisions are to put their people first, to feed their people, to get health care to their people knowing that the world would be willing to help them,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington. “North Korea needs to fully and immediately dismantle their nuclear weapons program.”

North Korea, however, continues to insist that it is under imminent threat from the United States. Even as the news agency bulletin was issued, the North’s official newspaper, Rodong Shinmun, assailed the Pentagon for its plans to move U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula away from the demilitarized zone and invest $11 billion in new military equipment for South Korea.

Such moves, the newspaper charged, prove “the U.S. imperialists’ plan for preemptive nuclear attack. After the Iraqi war, the U.S. is stepping up the preparation for the second Korean war, regarding [North Korea] as a new target of state terrorism.”

Despite the barrage of angry words, there has been a move in recent days toward reopening diplomatic channels between the United States and North Korea. Representatives from the U.S., Japan and South Korea are meeting this week in Hawaii, after which they are expected to call for another round of U.S.-North Korea talks like those hosted by China in April.

In Tokyo on Monday, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun wrapped up a four-day state visit and reiterated his commitment to finding a diplomatic solution to the North Korean crisis.

“We will not tolerate North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons. At the same time, we believe this issue should be settled peacefully through dialogue,” Roh told Japan’s parliament.

In another sign that South Korea is pushing forward on the diplomatic front, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to hold a ceremony Saturday to connect separated railroad tracks on the east and west coasts of the peninsula. The project, in the works for three years, had been stalled for months.

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.