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U.S. to N. Korea: We will not be blackmailed
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration is not looking to escalate the standoff with North Korea over its nuclear program, a senior State Department official has said, but it will not give into "blackmail" either. Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the growing crisis with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi Tuesday morning, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said. North Korea has alarmed the world community by beginning to remove International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring equipment at a nuclear reactor that is able to produce weapons-grade plutonium. "The secretary reiterated what we have said before," Reeker said of Powell's conversation with Kawaguchi. "We are not seeking to escalate this problem, but we are not going to give in to blackmail." While North Korea has said it wants to open negotiations with the United States, U.S. officials have so far refused, saying the United States will not enter into dialogue in response to threats or broken commitments. The refusal by the United States to negotiate could lead to an "uncontrollable catastrophe," North Korea's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper has warned. (Full story) In the event of a nuclear conflict, he said, North Korea would deal a "merciless punishment" to the United States. "If they, ignorant of their rival, dare provoke a nuclear war, the army and people of the DPRK led by Kim Jong Il, the invincible commander, will rise up to mete out determined and merciless punishment to the U.S. imperialist aggressors with the might of single-hearted unity more powerful than A-bomb," he said. South Korea's outgoing president, Kim Dae-jung, condemned Pyongyang's decision to take down monitoring cameras, break seals on its nuclear plants and move the fuel rods. "We have said it repeatedly and sometimes we presented it on documents that we can never go along with North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, including missiles or nuclear weapons, and that this is the absolute condition for talks," Kim said. While Bush administration officials said they are continuing to work diplomatically, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned North Korea not to assume that the United States was not capable of acting militarily on two fronts, even as it prepares for a war with Iraq. Over the weekend, the North started removing the safety seals and blocking surveillance cameras placed by international monitoring agencies at facilities in Yongbyon. On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the North Koreans were continuing to dismantle the monitoring devices and break seals on its nuclear facilities. IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei said North Korea had unilaterally continued the process of disrupting IAEA safeguard measures at its nuclear facilities. "On 23-24 December, the DPRK cut most of the seals and impeded the functioning of surveillance equipment installed at both the fuel rod fabrication plant and the reprocessing facility," ElBaradei said. "To date, seals have been cut and surveillance equipment impeded at a total of three facilities at Yongbyon: the 5 megawatt reactor including the associated spent fuel pond, the fuel rod fabrication plant and the reprocessing facility." Unless the IAEA is able to reinstate its safeguard measures without delay at the facilities, ElBaradei said, it will not be able to provide assurances that North Korea is not diverting nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices as required by its safeguard agreement pursuant to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program in 1994 in exchange for new reactors and shipments of alternative fuel oil. North Korean officials said they have been forced to restart the program because a U.S.-led consortium decided to stop the alternative shipments after Pyongyang disclosed it had an active nuclear weapons program. The United States believes North Korea already has as many as three nuclear warheads in addition to the plutonium that could be used to make two more. The standoff began last month, when Pyongyang admitted it had a clandestine weapons program, in violation of a 1994 international agreement. The Agreed Framework had called for North Korea to freeze an earlier nuclear weapons program in exchange for the United States' promise to provide fuel oil and build two safer light water nuclear reactors to produce power. But in the wake of the North Korean revelation, the United States ordered the suspension of fuel oil deliveries to the Communist nation. North Korean officials said the move has forced them to re-start the program to produce electricity, a claim disputed by the Bush administration. "If North Korea is looking gain the support of the U.S., this is not the way to do it," Reeker said. The Bush administration is consulting closely with China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Over the past several days, Powell has been intensely working the phones, urging leaders of each country to exert pressure on North Korea to allow IAEA monitoring of suspected nuclear sites. "Obviously we want a peaceful, diplomatic solution to this, but the next step is really up to North Korea to live up to its commitments and sit down and have a conversation with IAEA, a senior State Department official said. -- CNN State Department Producer Elise Labott contributed to this report
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We are not seeking to escalate this problem, but we are not going to give in to blackmail
