U.S. Doubts On North Korea Nukes

The United States will not certify that North Korea is adhering to a 1994 agreement aimed at containing its nuclear weapons program, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday.

But he said the Bush administration would issue "waivers" allowing $95 million in fuel oil to go to North Korea this year, as called for in the 1994 Agreed Framework."

"It's a strong message to North Korea that they need to comply with their international obligations and agreements," Fleischer told reporters. "There's no question the president has concerns that we've not been provided with sufficient information by the North Koreans, concerns remain about their compliance with the agreement."

In effect, the new policy expresses doubts about that country's willingness to be a non-nuclear state.

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision will have no practical effect on U.S. nuclear cooperation with North Korea, but amounts to a clear signal of U.S. unhappiness with Pyongyang.

It comes less than two months after Mr. Bush moved closer to a confrontation with North Korea by listing that country as part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq.

Under the 1994 agreement, North Korea pledged to freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two light-water nuclear reactors financed mostly by South Korea and Japan.

North Korea has been allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to monitor the site where the nuclear program was frozen. But the Bush administration questions whether North Korea has carried out a secret nuclear bomb project elsewhere.

The key U.S. contribution to the 1994 agreement is to provide 500,000 tons of fuel to North Korea each year to help the country cover its energy needs until the new reactors become operational.

As a condition for the fuel deliveries to go ahead, however, Congress insisted the president examine North Korean compliance with all provisions of the 1994 agreement.

The president can certify North Korean compliance, waive the requirement or not certify.

Until now, North Korea has been certified every year, but Bush this year will exercise his waiver authority to show unhappiness with North Korea's refusal to disclose its nuclear history fully by permitting inspections by the energy agency, the official said.

The waiver will not block future fuel deliveries, Bush administration officials said.

But Congress still must approve the money for the fuel, a debate that each year proves heated and could be more so this year, because of the waiver decision. South Korean experts warned of a possible security crisis if the fuel oil does not arrive.

"If President Bush really does not certify North Korean compliance, that itself is a very dangerous gesture that can further heighten tension on the peninsula," said Lee Jong-seok, a researcher at the independent Sejong Institute.

The divided Korean peninsula faced a severe crisis in 1993 when North Korea abruptly pulled out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. After nearly a year of tough negotiations, North Korea retracted that decision.

South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong will visit the United States next month for talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell on the two allies' relations with North Korea, officials said Wednesday.

The issue has been attracting increasing Bush administration attention because inspections must be completed before key components of the two new reactors are installed.

Construction for the new reactors, which replace plutonium-producing models, is expected to begin in August, and managers of the project estimate that a significant portion will be completed by May 2005.

Henry Sokolsky and Victor Galinsky, nonproliferation experts who are highly critical of North Korea, wrote last month that the three-year time lag may seem like a long time but insisted it's not.

It will take the agency at least three to four years after Pyongyang grants full access to all nuclear sites "to determine if it is making or hiding nuclear weapons materials," Sokolsky and Galinsky said in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal.

They said even with the low-end inspection estimate of three years, Pyongyang must open up to inspections by May for the process to be completed by the May 2005 target date.

The U.S. official said the administration has clear evidence that North Korea has no intention of allowing the IAEA inspections to take place.