According to the Associated Press, "Administration officials had said Thursday [April 24] that North Korean delegate Li Gun told Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly that his country had nuclear weapons and would test, export or use them, depending on U.S. actions." Li Gun, a north Korean deputy foreign minister, reportedly made the statement during a three-day meeting with U.S. government representatives hosted by the Chinese government.

North Korean officials also reportedly told the U.S. delegation that Pyongyang had reprocessed enough spent nuclear fuel rods to be used in the production of nuclear weapons. "That claim is not backed up by U.S. intelligence," an April 26 AP article stated.

Two weeks earlier, Washington failed to get the United Nations Security Council to issue an official condemnation of north Korea at its April 9 meeting, which would have paved the way for UN-sponsored sanctions against Pyongyang. The proposal was vetoed by Beijing and Moscow. The UN body, however, did express its "concern" over the DPRK’s nuclear program, which furthered the U.S. objective of isolating north Korea diplomatically and politically.

Beijing hosted the trilateral talks with Washington and Pyongyang, aiding the U.S. government’s goal of tying China and other governments in the region into its anti-DPRK campaign. China is north Korea’s largest trading partner, and its largest source of food and economic aid. It provides 70 percent of the country’s oil.

To pressure the north Korean workers state, the Bush administration has demanded it abandon its nuclear program before considering a nonaggression pact or a resumption of deliveries of oil and food to north Korea. Washington halted the shipments in October. The oil and food aid was part of the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which the U.S., Japanese, and south Korean governments also promised to assist in the construction of nuclear power reactors in north Korea that would not be capable of reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium. In exchange, Pyongyang agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons program.

"As the DPRK laid out a new proposal for the settlement of the nuclear issue, proceeding from its stand to avert a war on the Korean Peninsula and achieve lasting peace and stability, it will follow the future attitude of the United States toward us," said a statement by the north Korean foreign ministry.

Washington’s latest escalation of its campaign against north Korea builds on earlier threats of carrying out bombing strikes to destroy north Korea’s nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.  
 
 
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