By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
North Korea's uranium enrichment program is seemingly aimed at pressing the United State to promptly agree to hold bilateral talks, an analyst here said Friday.
In a letter to the United Nations, the secretive state said that it had completed the final phase of uranium enrichment and had also extracted a batch of plutonium from spent fuel rods.
South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade expressed regret over the North Korean announcement, whereas the Ministry of Defense said it was difficult to confirm Pyongyang's claims.
The North Korean nuclear issue is also expected to dominate a summit, presumably late this month, between President Lee Myung-bak and Yukio Hatoyama who will become Japan's next prime minister on Aug. 16, a report said.
According to Japanese media, the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, which won a landslide victory in general elections last week, is coordinating schedules for a summit with Lee and leaders of countries, who are expected to flock to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.
"North Korea has already gave up everything it could offer including the release of two U.S. journalists," Prof. Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul told The Korea Times.
"It appears that the North is trying to say it cannot help but strengthen its nuclear deterrent if the United States does not agree to two-way talks."
The reclusive state has recently made a conciliatory gesture by inviting former U.S. President Bill Clinton to Pyongyang and freeing two female American journalists after a rare meeting between Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il last month.
The professor also noted that it is necessary to consider the timing.
"Given that U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth is visiting Korea, I think that the letter signals North Korea's wish to have dialogue with the United States on the nuclear issue as soon as possible," he said.
Bosworth is on a trip to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo to discuss the nuclear issue and cooperation among participants in the six-party denuclearization talks.
Bosworth, who arrived in Seoul Friday, is scheduled to meet with chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-lac and Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, today.
"Obviously, anything that the North is doing in the area of nuclear development is of concern to us," Bosworth said before heading to Seoul.
"I think for all of us, it reconfirms the necessity to maintain a coordinated position on the need for complete, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
Seoul's foreign ministry urged the prickly state to return to six-way talks.
"It is regretful that North Korea is going against U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874," ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said. "The government will closely cooperate with other countries on dismantling its nuclear programs and having North Korea return to the talks."
He added that South Korean officials will have a serious discussion on this issue with Bosworth.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Unification expressed hope that the nuclear proceedings will not negatively affect a reunion of displaced families scheduled for Sept. 26 to Oct. 1 in the Mt. Geumgang resort in North Korea.
The letter to the U.N. council said the nation's uranium enrichment tests have been successfully carried out, and that process was in the "concluding state."
"We are prepared for both sanctions and dialogue," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
ksy@koreatimes.co.kr
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