AFP | Thursday, March 29, 2007

A South Korean presidential envoy held a secret meeting with a North Korean official just 11 days after the communist state’s nuclear test last October, officials said Thursday.

President Roh Moo-Hyun’s office confirmed newspaper reports of the meeting and said it was held in Beijing on October 20.

Roh sent a former aide, An Hee-Jong, to meet state councillor Lee Ho-Nam following intelligence reports that the North still wanted disarmament talks and was eager for a meeting with Seoul, according to Lee Ho-Chul, a presidential aide for information.

“President Roh and his chief of staff received the report and gave an instruction to verify its reliability and what North Korea was thinking of,” Lee told Yonhap news agency late Wednesday.

Lee said the North Koreans only wanted to discuss Seoul’s suspension of rice and fertiliser aid “and little progress was made” at the Beijing talks.

But in a surprise move, North Korea on October 31 agreed to return to six-party talks on scrapping its nuclear programme.

Last month it pledged to shut down and seal its plutonium-producing Yongbyon reactor and other plants by April 14 in exchange for energy aid.

Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, which broke the news of the Beijing meeting, on Thursday accused Roh of violating his government’s pledge to make its North Korea policy transparent.

It alleged that An had violated national security laws by meeting the North Korean without approval from the unification ministry.

Conservative media and political opponents suspect Roh is trying to arrange an inter-Korean summit this year, to improve the prospects of his preferred candidate in the December presidential election.

The government says the time is not yet ripe for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

Other news reports have suggested the Beijing meeting last October was to prepare the ground for a summit. Lee, the presidential aide, denied this.

“We were not in a state of proposing a summit at that time when tensions ran extremely high on the Korean peninsula right after North Korea’s October 9 test,” he said.

He said the main topic was whether North Korea was really willing to return to six-party talks and possible denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Reuters | February 21, 2007

North Korea can make a nuclear warhead that can be mounted on missiles capable of hitting all of South Korea and most of Japan, U.S. nuclear experts said in a report obtained on Wednesday.

Two U.S. nuclear experts who recently visited North Korea’s atomic facilities north of Pyongyang said the secretive and impoverished state had separated enough plutonium for five to 12 nuclear weapons.

“Little is known about North Korea’s ability to make a nuclear weapon, although it is assessed as likely able to build a crude nuclear warhead for its Nodong (Rodong) missile,” te Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said in a report released on Tuesday in the United States.

The non-governmental group’s report added: “the warhead may not be reliable, and it may have a relatively low yield.”

Many proliferation experts doubt whether North Korea has the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile.

The ISIS report said North Korea had probably obtained technology from overseas that would help it make a crude nuclear warhead.

Experts do not doubt that North Korea has hundreds of missiles, including its modified Scud-type missile called the Rodong, that are capable of hitting all of South Korea and large parts of Japan.

North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in October. Seoul government officials and nuclear experts said the exploded device had a relatively low yield.

North Korea agreed earlier this month to shut its sole reactor and main source of plutonium in return for aid as a step toward scrapping its nuclear arms program.