Rumsfeld raps North Korea for possessing 'nuclear weapons'

Kyodo News ^ | September 16, 2002

[HAL9000]

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday said Pyongyang has ''nuclear weapons'' in its military arsenal, citing alleged North Korean exports of missile technologies as an example at a news briefing at the Pentagon.

''We do know that they (North Korea) are one of the world's worst proliferators, particularly with ballistic missile technologies. We know they're a country that has been aggressively developing nuclear weapons and has nuclear weapons,'' Rumsfeld said.

The U.S. government, however, rectified his remarks later as they lacked clear evidences.

Rumsfeld met Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi before appearing at the Pentagon news briefing, but a Japanese official said North Korea did not come up for discussion.

The Kawaguchi-Rumsfeld meeting came on the eve of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Pyongyang for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Rumsfeld was responding to a question whether the U.S. would consider taking military action against North Korea and Iran, as Washington had done against Iraq.

U.S. President George W. Bush has branded the three countries as an ''axis of evil.''

Questioned on the status of U.S. policy toward the three countries, Rumsfeld said he sees a ''different situation'' in each of the three countries.

Rumsfeld also sought to distinguish North Korea from Iraq in terms of being a security threat to neighboring countries.

''We know they're a danger first and foremost to their own people, and second, they're a threat principally because of their proliferating activities, as opposed to being a threat to South Korea,'' Rumsfeld said.

The Central Intelligence Agency has said the U.S. intelligence community has judged in the mid-1990s that North Korea had produced one, possibly two, nuclear weapons.

[Captainpaintball]

Hey Donald! Where were you when Bush approved kilnton's 95 million dollar sale of nuclear technology to North korea a few months ago?

[Mitchell]

Ping.