Quote:<span style='font-size:16pt;line-height:100%'>North Korea:
'We have nukes'</span>
U.S., allies blister Pyongyang for pulling out
of disarmament talks

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea triggered an avalanche of international criticism Thursday when it boasted for the first time that it had nuclear weapons and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks any time soon.

Using a flip Western expression for such weapons, the government said in an English-language statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency: “We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the [North].”

The United States and South Korea, the North’s main rivals, played down the revelation and urged North Korea to return to the six-nation talks that began in 2003, which also include China, Japan and Russia. Analysts suggested that the statement could be a negotiating tactic aimed at extracting concessions from its negotiating partners.

“After its previous claims had failed to draw enough attention, North Korea now seeks to make people take it more seriously, create an atmosphere of crisis and make its negotiating partners pay more in order to persuade it to give up its nuclear capabilities,” a senior South Korean official said on condition of anonymity.


Bush, West on the hot seat
Whatever the explanation, the statement dramatically raised the stakes in the two-year nuclear confrontation and posed a grave challenge to President Bush, who once branded the North part of an “axis of evil” along with Iran and Iraq but started his second term with a vow to end its nuclear program through the six-nation talks.

The Bush administration called on Pyongyang to give up its atomic aspirations Thursday so life could be better for its impoverished people. The United Nations also urged the North to reverse course, while other participants in the talks called the announcement a “major mistake” and a development that could “only cause regret.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, dismissed the North’s contention that the United States would attack it.
“The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea,” Rice said in Luxembourg, where she was on the final day of her tour of Europe and the Middle East. “There is a path for the North Koreans that would put them in a more reasonable relationship with the rest of the world.”

Estimates say about a half-dozen weapons
North Korea’s claim could not be verified independently, because it expelled the last U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002. “Nothing in the last 24 hours has contributed factually to our understanding” of North Korea’s nuclear program, said Adam Ereli, a spokesman for the State Department.

The North is not known to have tested an atomic bomb, but international officials have long suspected that it has one or two nuclear weapons. The CIA has estimated that with a highly enriched uranium weapons program and the use of sophisticated high-speed centrifuges, North Korea could be making more.


A U.S. official told NBC News’ Robert Windrem on Thursday that U.S. intelligence would not dispute reported estimates that North Korea had six to eight nuclear weapons, noting that the Energy Department had said it could have as many as 10 or 12.

“What the North said today confirms what our intelligence has been for more than a decade,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
A recent Air Force analysis said North Korea was believed to have “fewer than 50” ballistic missiles able to deliver a nuclear weapon, none of which had a range of more than 800 miles — capable of reaching anywhere in South Korea or Japan, but not the United States. The U.S. official would not comment on whether it was known to have built missile warheads rather than simple gravity bombs.
First public claim of weapons

Previously, North Korea told international negotiators in closed-door talks that it had nuclear weapons and might test one of them, South Korean officials say. The North’s envoy to the United Nations told reporters last year that the country had “weaponized” plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods. Those rods would contain enough plutonium for several bombs.

But the statement Thursday was North Korea’s first public announcement that it had nuclear weapons, which it said would “will remain [a] nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. official told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that North Korea “must feel the U.S. is deeply engaged elsewhere in the world. They do feel there is a deterrent effect to these kinds of weapons.”
However, the North runs the risk, through such a statement, of alienating countries in the region that have provided economic support. In addition, in “classic North Korean fashion,” the official noted, they have “left the door open a crack to return to talks” by stating an indefinite suspension of participation.

International community urges resumption of talks
South Korea said Thursday the North’s decision to stay away from talks was “seriously regrettable,” and it repeated its previous estimate that Pyongyang had enough plutonium to build one or two nuclear bombs.
We once again urge North Korea to rejoin the six-party talks without conditions so that it can discuss whatever differences it has with the United States and other participants,” said Lee Kyu-hyung, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. “We express our strong concern with the North Korean statement that it has nuclear weapons, and we again declare our stance that we will never tolerate North Korea possessing nuclear weapons.”

In London, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also urged North Korea to rejoin the talks, and he asked the five other nations to help.

“I expect that with efforts by the other countries involved, North Korea could be brought back to the table,” Annan said following talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
In addition to the United States and South Korea, the other participants joined Annan’s call.

“It would be a major mistake for the DPRK were they to go down that route,” Straw said in a joint news conference with Annan, referring to the country by the initials of its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said North Korea’s move “can only cause regret,” adding that Moscow respected Pyongyang’s concern about its safety but believed “that the problem should be resolved through negotiations rather than arms race, especially nuclear arms race.”

The chief spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Kong Quan, said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site: “We consistently advocate the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and the preservation of the peninsula’s peace and stability.”

Quote:Unless you are really naive enough to believe N. Korea was so much more advanced than anyone could imagine as to develop 8-10 nuclear weapons since 2000, just because of Bush.

The Jays Wrote:

Hoon Wrote:Reasonable?

Do you honestly think those blaming it on Bush have a point when you consider how long it takes a country in need of US aide to develop a nuclear program, much less have an arsenal of 8-10?

You're not well versed in the rationale of this point, are you?

A complete nuke program by a small, destitute country, building a self admitted arsenal of nuclear weapons in about 4 years?
Think for yourself instead of being fashionably resistant to anything Bush does for a change.

You are a fucking baffoon. You are trying to argue with anyone who will actually try and talk to you. All you want to do is get pissed off at anyone so that you can spout pure republican GOP blather. You do not care that your government is fucking bloated like that bitch from What's Eating Gilbert Grape, nor do you care that it is regulating more of your life than you need.

Sir O Wrote:

Quote:Unless you are really naive enough to believe N. Korea was so much more advanced than anyone could imagine as to develop 8-10 nuclear weapons since 2000, just because of Bush.

WHAT THE FUCK??? They've been working on nukes for the longest time, no shit. Decades. Where did I say anything that even hinted at what you're saying?

Quote:I'll give you this, though. Not many "leftists" or whatever you label yourself would admit Clinton was anything other than a saint.