North Korea Refuses Nuke Checks

North Korea on Wednesday rejected the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency's calls on the communist state to abandon its nuclear weapons program and allow foreign observers to inspect its nuclear sites.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors adopted a resolution on Nov. 29 urging North Korea to "give up any nuclear weapons programs expeditiously and in a verifiable manner" and open "all relevant facilities to IAEA inspection and safeguards."

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun sent a letter to IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei on Monday rejecting the resolution as "extremely unilateral," said the North's official news agency, KCNA, in a dispatch monitored in Seoul on Wednesday.

"Paek clarified that the (North Korean) government cannot accept the November 29, 2002 resolution of the IAEA board of governors in any case," KCNA said.

"There is no change in (the North's) principled stand on the nuclear issue," KCNA quoted Paek as saying.

The IAEA has said if North Korea rejects its resolution, it could consider taking the matter to the U.N. Security Council.

U.S. diplomats say North Korea revealed in October that it had a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. That accord called for the country to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two nuclear power plants.

The United States, with backing from Japan, South Korea and the European Union, decided to punish North Korea by suspending free fuel oil shipments from December.

North Korea responded by declaring the 1994 agreement "collapsed."

In Paek's letter, North Korea reiterated its claim that the "nuclear crisis" on the Korean Peninsula was due to the "U.S. hostile policy," and accused the IAEA of treating it unfairly.

"I was disappointed at the IAEA board of governors still acting under the manipulation of the United States," Paek said.

Much of North Korea's nuclear program remains shrouded in mystery.

The IAEA, which is charged by the United Nations with keeping tabs on nuclear weapons programs worldwide, has inspectors in North Korea but their activities are limited to policing an old nuclear complex north of Pyongyang and a reactor at another site.

North Korea once showed IAEA inspectors only about 100 grams of weapons-grade plutonium — not enough to make a weapon — but analyses indicated it likely produced much more. U.S. officials believe North Korea has produced enough plutonium for a few nuclear weapons.

In addition, they say they have evidence that North Korea has been running a new weapons program using enriched uranium.

The IAEA has been pressing the North Koreans to agree to full-scale inspections, but Pyongyang has resisted, accusing the United States of delaying construction of two nuclear reactors promised under the 1994 accord.

North Korea has also insisted that talks on its nuclear program cannot proceed unless the United States signs a non-aggression treaty with the communist stronghold.

The North Korean situation poses a sticky diplomatic challenge to the United States, for a number of reasons.

It could force the administration to justify having two different policies on "rogue" states allegedly possessing weapons of mass destruction: Iraq, where military force has been explicitly threatened, and North Korea, where the use of force is unlikely.

Any military action against North Korea would pose large practical and political problems. Practically, North Korea has a massive army poised on the border of South Korea, and has artillery that can hit Seoul. Politically, North Korea has close diplomatic ties with China and abuts the communist giant.

Furthermore, the origin of the nuclear weapons materials themselves could implicate close allies in the president's "war on terrorism."

As CBS News Correspondent Gretchen Carlson reports, Pakistan has military ties with North Korea and this summer provided North Korea with the machinery it needed to make uranium for nuclear weapons. North Korea supplied missile parts to help build Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.