The Obama administration told the United Nations nuclear watchdog that North
Korea likely has built more than one uranium-enrichment facility, significantly
raising the proliferation threat posed by the secretive communist state.
U.S. and European officials are pressing the International Atomic Energy
Agency to better scrutinize Pyongyang's potential role in sharing its nuclear
technologies with third countries.
But the U.N. agency's ability to
monitor Pyongyang is limited: North Korea kicked out the IAEA's inspectors in
2009.
The IAEA already is investigating evidence that North Korea
transferred a nearly operational nuclear reactor to Syria, which Israeli jets
subsequently destroyed in 2007.
U.S. and U.N. officials now worry
Pyongyang could begin exporting its advanced centrifuge equipment to allies in
Iran and Myanmar.
"A uranium enrichment capability in [North Korea]
could bolster its pursuit of a weapons capability and increases our concerns
about prospects for onward proliferation of fissile material and of sensitive
technologies," Glyn Davies, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told the agency's board
on Thursday.
Mr. Davies said the U.S. believes Pyongyang may have
already developed uranium-enrichment facilities beyond the site it showed a
visiting American scientist, Siegried Hecker, last month.
These
additional facilities would allow North Korea to significantly increase its
numbers of atomic weapons, as well as their yield.
"It is likely that
North Korea had been pursuing an enrichment capability long before the April
2009 date it now claims," Mr. Davies said. "If so, there is a clear likelihood
that DPRK has built other uranium enrichment-related facilities in its
territory."
Since North Korea made public its uranium-enrichment
capability last month, the Obama administration has struggled to formulate a new
policy toward leader Kim Jong Il's government. The work on a new policy has been
compounded by the North Korean attack on a South Korean island on Nov. 23, which
dramatically heightened tensions in Northeast Asia.
China has proposed
hosting this month an emergency session of the five other countries that have
engaged Pyongyang diplomatically in recent years. In addition to China, they are
Japan, South Korea, Russia and the U.S.
Washington and Seoul, however,
have been lukewarm to the idea, worried that it could appear to be rewarding
Pyongyang for its provocative actions. Washington is also concerned that North
Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, is trying to present the country internationally as
a declared nuclear-power.
"Our position remains the same. We will not
accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state," Mr. Davies said.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will hold a key strategy session on
Monday in Washington with her Japanese and South Korean counterparts. The
meeting follows extensive war games that the U.S. and South Korean militaries
conducted over the past week in the waters off the Korean peninsula.
Separately in Vienna on Thursday, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali
Ashgar Soltanieh, said his government welcomed a resumption of nuclear talks
with the U.S. in Geneva on Dec. 6-7, but gave no indication that Tehran was
willing to bend to pressure and cease producing nuclear fuel.
He also
charged the U.S. and others of playing a role in the attacks Monday on two
Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran, in which one was killed.
Mr.
Soltanieh charged the IAEA with being complicit in the attacks by sharing
information with Washington. "Some of the targets are the nuclear experts listed
in . . . the sanctions," Mr. Soltanieh said. "The agency should feel
responsible."
Iranian officials blamed Western countries and Israel
after the attacks. The IAEA declined to comment on the charges. The U.S. has
denied a role in Monday's attacks.
Iranian security services have made a
number of arrests in the case, the country's intelligence chief said Thursday.
According to Iranian authorities, assailants on motorcycles attached
magnetized bombs to the drivers' doors of the cars of the two scientists as they
were driving to work in Tehran.
Five scientists, including three nuclear
researchers, have been killed in Tehran in the past year and a half.