NORTH KOREA: North Korea seriously escalated the confrontation with the United States yesterday by declaring that it is to expel United Nations inspectors from its nuclear facilities.
The move will allow Pyongyang to start up a plutonium-producing reactor free from outside scrutiny.
It issued a defiant statement: "In a situation where there is no longer justification for the inspectors to stay in our country, our government has decided to send them out." It also accused the US of "rushing headlong into extremely dangerous confrontation". The brinkmanship is apparently aimed at wringing concessions from Washington, but there are huge risks attached.
Despite warnings from President Bush's administration, Pyongyang also announced that it is to reactivate a laboratory for the storage of spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor once it resumes operation. The Pentagon claims that Pyongyang will be able to extract plutonium from the rods which could be used to make nuclear weapons within months.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Vienna-based UN body responsible for trying to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, confirmed that it had received a letter from North Korea about the expulsion of its two inspectors, although the inspectors knew nothing about the matter.
The moves by North Korea's government mean that it could be declared in breach of a UN security council obligation before Iraq. The IAEA is due to meet in Washington on January 6th to decide.
The IAEA's director-general, Mr Mohammed El Baradi, who is also leading the hunt for nuclear weapons material in Iraq, urged North Korea to leave the inspectors in place.
A British Foreign Office minister, Mr Bill Rammell, described Pyongyang's behaviour as "very worrying, dangerous and unacceptable". But he said the move appeared to be "a clumsy attempt to gain international leverage rather than being a move to set itself in contravention and opposition to the international community". He insisted the problem was on a different scale from Iraq.
But the former Conservative foreign secretary, Mr Malcolm Rikfind, in an article published yesterday, argued North Korea posed "an even more serious and even more imminent threat" than Iraq.
Relations between Pyongyang and Washington have deteriorated sharply over the past three months. The US defence secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, warned this week that Washington was capable of waging war on two fronts, Iraq and North Korea.
The latest escalation adds to pressure on the South Korean president-elect, Mr Roh Moo-hyun, who broke his silence to issue a strong statement. "North Korea must withdraw the nuclear measures it has taken and restore facilities and equipment to their original state," said Mr Roh, who won last week's election on a pledge to continue seeking detente with Pyongyang.
Mr Roh acknowledged that Pyongyang's moves were undermining support in South Korea for his plan to put fresh life into the "sunshine" policy towards the North started by the South's outgoing president, Kim Dae-jung.
The crisis began in October after North Korea claimed that Washington had been slow to implement a 1994 agreement whereby the North froze its nuclear weapons programme in return for the US and other countries building two nuclear plants to supply the country with electricity.
The official North Korean news agency yesterday appeared to concede that the North's nuclear programme has military uses.
The US demand that it should be scrapped was "nothing but a pipe dream", the agency said. - (Guardian Service)