First U.S., N. Korea Talks End in Confusion

SEOUL —  The first talks between the United States and North Korea in six months ended Friday in confusion over a North Korean envoy’s boast that his country already has two nuclear bombs and has reprocessed enough plutonium for many more.

U.S. officials said they were unable to corroborate many of the statements made by North Korean Gen. Ri Gun to Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly. And U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies disputed Ri’s claim that North Korea’s Yongbyon plant has been reprocessing plutonium. That prompted questions about whether Pyongyang was exaggerating its nuclear prowess to try to deter the United States from any military action against North Korea.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, which hosted the talks and aspired to be a peacemaker, reported that the three-day meeting in Beijing had at least produced an agreement to meet again. But State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said the U.S. had not decided whether to have further talks.

North Korea’s position on future talks also was unclear.

The North Koreans were publicly derisive, saying through a Foreign Ministry spokesman that the United States “simply repeated its hackneyed, previous claims without setting forth any new proposals.”

Nevertheless, U.S., Chinese and South Korean officials were quick to insist that the lack of initial progress had done nothing to dampen their desire for a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis.

“Both of them expressed that the issue should be resolved in a peaceful way,” Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said, putting a hopeful spin on what in Asia looked like something of a diplomatic fiasco.

“The president continues to believe that this can be a matter that will be solved through diplomacy,” said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. “And I think it will also be very interesting to note what China’s reaction is to North Korea’s admission that it has nuclear weapons.”

Although the North Korean behavior was hardly encouraging, U.S. officials noted that amid Ri’s bluster was an offer to abandon the nuclear weapons programs under certain conditions -- and that the U.S. was analyzing the seriousness of that offer.

President Bush said Thursday that what he characterized as a North Korean attempt at blackmail showed why missile defense, a priority for his administration, is essential, and Fleischer repeated that point Friday.

“For the critics of missile defense,” he said, the North Korean announcement “is an important reminder of why missile defense is an important part of our strategy to defend our country.”

Kelly flew to Seoul on Friday night to brief South Korean officials on the talks and was expected to travel to Tokyo this morning. He made no comment to the press.

Transcripts of the talks would be vetted for discrepancies between the English and Korean versions of what was said, Boucher said. Subtleties of the Korean language and a North Korean propensity for choosing wording that can make English and Korean versions of the same statement differ made analysis essential, U.S. officials said.

Ri’s bombshell came on the sidelines of the meeting, during a lunch break Thursday, when the North Korean negotiator bragged to Kelly that North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and is in the process of making more. Although U.S. intelligence had long suspected that North Korea had enough plutonium for one or two bombs, North Korea had never previously confirmed -- or denied -- having a bomb.

Many South Koreans who read the subsequent headlines were bewildered over what the North Korean actually said, why he said it and whether it was true.

“If it’s true that the North has nuclear weapons, it violates mutual agreements and would be a major disturbance to peace on the Korean peninsula and to Northeast Asia,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan told reporters after meeting with Kelly on Friday night. He added that the North Korean confession would not change Seoul’s previously stated hope of resolving the nuclear crisis through diplomatic means.

The South Koreans, along with the Russians and some others, had expressed doubts about whether North Korea, in its impoverishment and decrepitude, could produce something as sophisticated as a nuclear bomb. Many South Koreans believe that the North Koreans all along have exaggerated their nuclear capability to improve their bargaining position and avoid being, like Iraq, the target of a preemptive strike.

“North Korea always relies on these same old tactics of exaggerating and bluffing, but the Bush administration doesn’t distinguish between what’s real and what’s a bluff. That is creating a very rapid downward spiral,” said Moon Chung In, a South Korean academic with ties to the Seoul government.

“The prognosis is really rather grim at this point,” agreed Paik Jin Hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul National University. “North Korea’s hard-line bargaining tactics are undermining those in America like [Secretary of State] Colin Powell who supported negotiations with North Korea.”

Many in Seoul blame a policy rift inside the Bush administration for leaving North Korea confused about what the United States’ intentions are. They say the Beijing talks were sabotaged by a leaked memo to the New York Times this week that suggested some support for toppling North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s government.

“The North Koreans could easily believe that a regime change is the ultimate goal of the Bush administration and that only by becoming a nuclear power like India or Pakistan will they be able to have better relations with the United States,” said Choi Kang, a former South Korean national security advisor.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld did his best Friday to distance himself from the hard-line view.

Asked whether the Bush administration was moving closer to a military solution, Rumsfeld replied: “Oh, I don’t think I’d want to say that. The president’s on a diplomatic path.

“Clearly, the recent discussions have not moved the ball forward,” Rumsfeld added. “But Secretary Powell and the president are working on the matter, and the hope is that it can ultimately be resolved through diplomatic means.”

U.S. officials said Ri told Kelly that North Korea has “almost finished” reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactor -- a process used to extract plutonium to make bombs.

That claim seems unlikely to be true, according to nuclear experts in Seoul, who say that reprocessing could easily be detected by U.S. intelligence because of chemicals released into the atmosphere and that the reprocessing of all 8,000 rods would take at least 4 1/2 months.

“It is almost impossible that they could have even if they wanted to,” said Kang Jeon Min, a nuclear scientist.

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Demick reported from Seoul and Efron from Washington.