U.S. not to accept N. Korea as nuclear weapons state: Blair

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) -- The United States Tuesday said it will not accept
North Korea as a nuclear weapons status, although it is seeking that status
through demonstration of its nuclear and missile capabilities.

"We judge Kim Jong-il seeks recognition of North Korea as a nuclear weapons power
by the U.S. and the international community," Dennis Blair, director of National
Intelligence, told a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing.
"Pyongyang's intent in pursuing dialogue at time time is to take advantage of
what it perceves as an enhanced negotiating position, having demonstrated its
nuclear and missile capabilities."
North Korea has boycotted the six-party talks on ending its nuclear ambitions
citing U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests early last year, but
recently reached out to the U.S. and South Korea, hinting at the possibility of
returning to the nuclear talks.
Pyongyang, however, demanded that sanctions be lifted and a peace treaty be
signed to replace a an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea's second nuclear test in May last year is widely seen as having
demonstrated its nuclear capability unlike one in 2006, which is seen as a
partial failure.
"We judge North Korea has tested two nuclear devices, and while we do not know
whether the North has produced nuclear weapons, we asses it has the capability to
do so," Blair said. "It remains our policy that we will not accept North Korea as
a nuclear weapons state, and we assess that other countries in the region remain
committed to the denuclearization of North Korea as has been reflected in the
six-party talks."
The chief U.S. intelligence officer said that "The North's October 2006 nuclear
test was consistent with our long-standing assessment that it had produced a
nuclear device, although we judge the test itself to have been a partial failure
based on its less-than-one-kiloton TNT equivalent yield."
On the second nuclear test, Blair said, it "supports its claim that it has been
seeking to develop weapons, and with a yield of roughly a few kilotons TNT
equivalent, was apparently more successful than the 2006 test."
Turning to the North's claim that it has "entered the final stage" of enriching
uranium as an another way to produce nuclear weapons than the plutonium produced
in its only operating reactor in Yongbyon, north of its capital Pyongyang, Blair
said, "The intelligence community continues to assess with high confidence North
Korea has pursued a uranium enrichment capability in the past, which we assess
was for weapons."
He also said that the North's poor conventional weapons capability led Pyongyang
to resort to the nuclear weapons.
"Because the conventional military capabilities gap between North and South Korea
has become so overwhelmingly great and prospects for reversal of this gap so
remote, Pyongyang relies on its nuclear program to deter external attacks on the
state and to its regime," he said.
"The KPA's capabilities are limited by an aging weapons inventory, low production
of military
combat systems, deteriorating physical condition of soldiers, reduced training and
increasing diversion of the military to infrastructure support," he said. KPA is an
acronym for the Korean People's Army, North Korea's military.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)

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