Posted on 05/06/2005 4:54:22 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Nuclear test by North Korea will be 'provocative act:' White House
Fri May 6, 3:19 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House warned any nuclear weapons test by North Korea will be a provocative act, as reports suggested an underground nuclear experiment could take place in the Stalinist state.
The New York Times said that US officials familiar with satellite and intelligence data believed North Korea was building a reviewing stand and filling in a tunnel, signs of a potential underground nuclear test.
"I don't want to get into discussing intelligence matters, but what I would say is that if North Korea did take such a step, that would just be another provocative act that would further isolate it from the international community," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
He said all countries in the region were committed to seeing a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
The United States, together with North Korea's neighbours, had been working through multilateral talks to meet the objective, he added.
"And so we want to see North Korea come back to the six-party talks and discuss, in a serious way, how to move forward on the proposal we've outlined," McClellan said.
Six-party negotiations designed to end Pyongyang's nuclear arms programs -- which group the two Koreas, Russia, China, Japan and the United States -- have been stalled for nearly a year since a third round of talks last June.
The North has boycotted the talks, citing "hostile" US policy, and has publicly announced it has nuclear weapons and it could manufacture more of them.
Media reports have said that the North has been preparing an underground nuclear test since March and might conduct one as early as June.
A senior US intelligence official, who has seen recent satellite images taken of Kilchu, in northeastern North Korea, told the New York Times that tunnels for underground nuclear tests differed from those dug in mines in that they need to be plugged up again to contain the powerful blast.
"You see them stemming the tunnel, taking material back into the mine to plug it up," said the unnamed official, a specialist in nuclear analysis. "There's a lot of activity," he added, "taking stuff in as opposed to taking it out."
Commenting on the report, acting State Department spokesman Tom Casey said "we certainly don't have any new assessment of North Korea's nuclear program."
A senior department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the idea that the United States had come up with "any new or startling assessment of what they may or may not be trying to do."
According to the Times report, the images also showed the construction of a reviewing stand, which officials said appeared luxurious by North Korean standards, several miles from the suspected test site.
A reviewing stand for visiting dignitaries is considered a significant clue to a possible nuclear test after the Western intelligence community overlooked one the North Koreans had built before they launched a missile in 1998.
North Korea is believed to have one or two crude nuclear bombs, according to US intelligence reports.
International jitters were heightened last Sunday when North Korea test-fired a short-range missile, although US, South Korean and Japanese officials refused to link the incident to Pyongyang's drive for nuclear arms.
Bomb experiments don't always work out as planned.
We could make a deal with Little Kim he give up leadership and "Friends" in Hollywood could take him
After that performaance in Team America I think we give him to Broadway
Fine - let them test - that's one less bomb they can use elsewhere.
A 50 kilton atomic weapon ? My my my ... just how did that turn into a 5 megaton thermonuclear detonation ???
North Korea must have had some tritium deposits in that hill that just went POOF.
Exactly!
I favor atmospheric testing over North Korea's nuclear reactor.
We are getting kind of like milquetoast US trade negotiators with the Japanese in the 1990s. We keep warning 'if you do this' 'if you do that, then...', but at the end of the day, we do nothing, they call our bluff, so the Japanese trade negotiators keep up their iron wall as they know we are made of empty threats.
Bottom line is the DPRK leadership under KJI and the Workers Party and KPA, reads the same Pentagon reports we read about the US being seriously militarily globally overstretched...and they keep kicking sand in our eye with confidence.
Which is why there is a chance that this will result in a horrendous blow-out. N. Korea keeps pushing and leave U.S. nothing but the last resort. I mean, forcing Dubya to pull the madman.
You know they are planning on a huge celebration on coming Aug. 15. I am sure they want to celebrate more than just 60th anniversary of liberation.
This could turn out to be the rerun of 1998 gala celebration after their long range missile launch.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.