By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
North Korea is believed to have begun its uranium enrichment program in 1996 at the earliest, the nation's top diplomat said Wednesday.
The remarks made by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan indicated that the secretive state may have reached a certain standard in weaponizing uranium.
"It appears that North Korea began the uranium enrichment program right after the 1994 Geneva agreement or as early as 1996," the minister said in an interview with Yonhap News. "What is certain is that the North began to enrich uranium quite early." Pyongyang agreed to give up its nuclear ambitions in the 1994 deal with the United States.
Rumors have been rampant regarding when North Korea started its uranium enrichment program and the isolated state was presumed to have begun developing the program from the late 1990s or 2000s.
Yu said that the ministry has yet to determine the current stage of Pyongyang's uranium program and how much material and nuclear weapons it currently has.
"But we are sharing related information with concerned countries," he added.
The minister emphasized that the issue should be included in the agenda when the six-party denuclearization talks resume.
"Uranium enrichment is a new challenge. As long as North Korea insists that it conducted a successful test of uranium enrichment, the related issue should be on the table," he said.
Last September, the reclusive state said it reached the final stage of enriching uranium, the second stage of making nuclear bombs.
It also claimed that it has been building more plutonium-based atomic weapons, saying, "Reprocessing of spent fuel rods is in its final phase and extracted plutonium is being weaponzied."
In response, the foreign ministry vowed to sternly deal with any North Korean provocations.
Given the North's continuous attempts to develop nuclear weapons, Yu said that the "grand bargain" proposed by President Lee Myung-bak is necessary.
"In conclusion, the 1994 Geneva Agreement gave North Korea 15 years (to develop nuclear weapons) and that led us to devise the grand bargain," he said.
The proposal calls for offering the isolated state incentives such as security guarantees and economic support in return for complete nuclear dismantlement.
Asked when North Korea is likely to return to the six-way forum, the minister said North Korea has no more excuses to boycott the talks.
"Now is the time for North Korea and China to show a more active response (to the calls for returning to the talks)," he said.
Pyongyang declared an indefinite boycott of the multilateral forum last year in retaliation for the international community's move to impose sanctions over its second nuclear test on May 25.