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(News Focus) N. Korea's unbending nuclear ambitions underneath peace overtures
By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Nov. 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's nuclear and missile ambitions are as alive as ever, and they will remain that way as long as the communist state sees no clear alternative to securing the survival of its political leadership.
North Korea announced this week it has finished extracting plutonium from 8,000 fuel rods that had been spent inside a nuclear reactor, and achieved "noticeable successes" in weaponizing it.
The amount would allow North Korea to create one to two nuclear bombs, in addition to the at least six it is estimated to have built, assuming Pyongyang already turned its existing plutonium into arms.
"North Korea is steering back toward brinkmanship, more quickly than can allow the U.S. to debate its options in dealing with Pyongyang's demands," Ryu Gil-jae, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said.
Tuesday's announcement came as North Korea and the U.S. wrangled with each other over ways to restart multilateral aid-for-denuclearization talks that have been stalled since late last year.
The talks -- also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia -- were declared "dead" by Pyongyang earlier this year, when the U.N. punished it over its April rocket launch and May nuclear test.
Faced with tougher sanctions and deepening economic plight, North Korea recently held out an olive branch, setting up visits by top foreign envoys and sending a diplomat to the U.S.
"The past few months may only have been an interlude in the North's stormy behavior," Ryu said, agreeing with South Korea's Unification Minister Hyun In-taek who earlier described North Korea's conciliatory gestures as "tactical."
"There remains a possibility that Pyongyang will relapse into provocation and consider detonating another atomic device if it sees no progress in talks," a senior defense official said last week.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his comments included intelligence material, said a third nuclear test -- should the North decide to go ahead with one -- would likely come in the vicinity of the area where the first two took place.
"We have seen no shortage of activity there either before or after the May test," the official said, declining to elaborate.
South Korean officials believe North Korea has built an underground tunnel to the west of Poongkye-ri, a region about 360km northeast of Pyongyang, where blasts occurred in 2006 and this year.
The officials also have not ruled out the possibility that North Korea has tampered with its other two key nuclear facilities -- a nuclear reactor and a fuel fabrication plant -- in Yongbyon.
The Yongbyon nuclear complex, 90km north of Pyongyang, was undergoing disablement steps under a 2007 six-nation agreement when the North expelled international monitors in April this year.
On Oct. 25, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said North Korea has yet to show signs it is willing to do away with its nuclear weapons program, calling its motives for dialogue "unclear."
The concern echoed an Oct. 21 statement by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who said in Seoul that North Korea's nuclear and missile threats have turned "more lethal and destablizing."
Neither officials gave specifics, but ranking South Korean officials told Yonhap last week that North Korea has lately completed the construction of its most modern missile base.
The Dongchang-ri base on the west coast had been under construction for several years, indicating North Korea continues to improve its ability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"The North Koreans have not inched away from their aspirations for weapons of mass destruction," said Kim Keun-shik, a professor who teaches North Korean issues at Kyungnam University. "Why would they? They need as many bargaining chips as they can have until they can secure the surest means of survival."
samkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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