By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Foreign and defense officials in Seoul reiterated Monday that the United States does not accept North Korea as a nuclear power, spurning media speculation about a possible change in the U.S. stance toward the North's nuclear capability and status.
``U.S. defense officials have said that the official position of the U.S. government on North Korea's nuclear status remains unchanged and it will not recognize the North as a nuclear weapon-possessing state,'' Song Bong-heon, chief of the Ministry of National Defense's international policy bureau, told reporters.
Song said the U.S. officials made the remarks during the Security Policy Initiative (SPI) meeting in Washington, D.C. late last week. The SPI is a regular gathering of senior defense officials from South Korea and the United States.
On Sunday, a Pentagon official was quoted by Yonhap news agency as said the U.S. government intelligence community believed North Korea was a nuclear state.
He cited a report by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) released in November as an example.
The NIC report, titled ``Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,'' contains a passage that reads: ``The possibility of a future disruptive regime change or collapse occurring in a nuclear weapon state such as North Korea also continues to raise questions regarding the ability of weak states to control and secure their nuclear arsenals.''
Controversy over Pyongyang's nuclear status erupted last week after it was found that a U.S. Joint Forces Command report had described North Korea as an Asian nuclear state, along with China, India, Pakistan and Russia.
Subsequently, it was also found that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in a magazine interview that he believed North Korea has built several nuclear bombs.
``North Korea has built several bombs, and Iran seeks to join the nuclear club,'' Gates, who has been selected to continue his job under President Barack Obama's administration, said in an article to be published in the January edition of the policy journal Foreign Affairs.
Defense officials and analysts here are paying keen attention to Gates' remarks because it was the first time that a defense leader either from the United States or South Korea has said North Korea succeeded in making nuclear bombs.
They also raised speculation that the U.S. government is moving to change its position on North Korea's nuclear status. Earlier this week, controversy erupted after it was found that an annual U.S. defense report categorized North Korea as one of the nuclear powers in Asia, alongside China, India, Pakistan and Russia.
Pyongyang, which conducted its first-ever nuclear test in October 2006, is believed to have enough plutonium to produce six to eight nuclear weapons, which was never officially confirmed.
Regional powers have been pushing the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions under a 2007 disarmament-for-aid pact. Chief nuclear envoys from the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia opened a fresh round of six-party talks in Beijing Monday to finalize the establishment of a protocol to verify the North's declaration of its nuclear programs and activities
The latest round of six-party talks ended last Thursday without an agreement over how to verify the nuclear facilities. Some observers suspect Pyongyang is waiting for Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20.
North Korean state media has picked up on the controversy over the JFC report. Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday in reference to the document, ``It is the first time that a U.S. government report has acknowledged and announced that North Korea is a nuclear weapons state.''