WASHINGTON — Confronted by new American intelligence, North Korea has admitted that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear-weapons development program for the past several years, the Bush administration said Wednesday night. Officials added that North Korea had also informed them that it was terminating a 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze all of its nuclear activity.
North Korea’s surprise revelation came 12 days ago in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, after a senior American diplomat confronted his North Korean counterparts with American intelligence data suggesting a secret project was under way. At first, the North Korean officials denied the allegation, according to an American official who was present.
The next day they acknowledged the nuclear program and according to one American official said “they have more powerful things as well.” American officials have interpreted that cryptic comment as an acknowledgment that North Korea possesses other weapons of mass destruction.
Administration officials refused to say Wednesday night whether the North Koreans had acknowledged successfully producing a nuclear weapon from the project, which uses highly enriched uranium. Nor would administration officials say whether, based on American intelligence, they believe North Korea has produced such a weapon.
“We’re not certain that it’s been weaponized yet,” said one official, noting that North Korea has conducted no nuclear testing, which the United States could easily detect.
The news immediately alters the delicate nuclear balance in Asia and confronts the Bush administration with two simultaneous crises involving nations developing weapons of mass destruction: one in Iraq, the other on the Korean Peninsula.
“We seek a peaceful resolution to this situation,” a senior administration official said Wednesday night, briefing reporters as news of the North Korean program began to leak. “No peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea.”
At a meeting Wednesday of the National Security Council, President Bush and his aides, who have been seeking to rid Iraq of suspected weapons of mass destruction (by U.N. mandate if possible, and by force if necessary), decided to handle the North Korean declarations through diplomatic channels.
They have dispatched two senior officials to China and other nations in the region in hopes of defusing the situation. One senior official said Wednesday that North Korea was “belligerent,” rather than apologetic, in its declaration and that it would not end its program.