Debate Re-ignited Over N. Korea’s Nuclear Status
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The U.S. spy chief-designate acknowledged Thursday that North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon in 2006.
The remark made by Leon Panetta, director-designate of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), during his Senate confirmation hearing have re-ignited controversy in South Korea over whether Washington recognizes Pyongyang as a nuclear power or not.
Previously, U.S. officials said the North conducted a ``nuclear device'' test, not a nuclear weapon test, and U.S. and South Korean authorities believed the test was unsuccessful.
``I really do think that if we are going to come into the 21st century we have got to set a list of priorities that not only look at current crises ― and clearly we've got Afghanistan, we've got Pakistan, we've got Iraq, we have North Korea,'' Panetta was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.
``We know North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon in 2006,'' he said. ``But we don't know whether Kim Jong-il is prepared to give up that nuclear capability once and for all.''
Controversy erupted earlier this year over a report published by the U.S. Joint Forces Command in November that included North Korea in the list of five nuclear weapons states in Asia, alongside China, India, Pakistan and Russia.
The report said North Korea conducted a nuclear weapon test and had produced sufficient fissile material to create more weapons.
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 said in an article to be published in the January edition of the policy journal Foreign Affairs.
Some defense officials and analysts here have raised speculation that the U.S. government is moving to change its position on North Korea's nuclear status.
Pyongyang is believed to have enough plutonium to produce six to eight nuclear weapons, and while this has never been officially confirmed, leaders from South Korea and the United States have said the North has succeeded in making nuclear bombs.
Regional powers have been pushing the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions under a 2007 disarmament-for-aid pact, but the six-party talks involving the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia are at a stalemate over the establishment of a protocol to verify the North's nuclear materials and activities.