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North Korea Puts Bush on the Spot
Thursday, October 17, 2002
(23:38)
By Carol Giacomo
Reuters Diplomatic Correspondent

In an effort to force Pyongyang to abandon the nuclear program, officials and experts said there were many options available to Washington. These include suspending U.S. supplies of heavy fuel oil to the North, halting construction of two light-water nuclear energy reactors funded by South Korea and Japan and encouraging China to halt food and fuel supplies to the impoverished Stalinist state.

WASHINGTON -- Reuters
North Korea's admission that it has a nuclear weapons program may vindicate President George W. Bush's designation of the reclusive state as a member of the "axis of evil," but it complicates next steps for a U.S. administration known for its tough views on problem states.

Hard-liners on Bush's team have long looked for ways to scuttle the 1994 Agreed Framework under which the North promised to freeze its nuclear program in return for desperately needed civilian energy supplies.

Disclosure on Wednesday that Pyongyang has for several years pursued a uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons in violation of that accord could give hard-liners their opening.

It could also inflame tensions on the Korean peninsula, strain further taut ties with friends and allies and tax a U.S. government whose priority agenda includes prosecuting the war on terrorism and contemplating war with Iraq, experts said.

* NUCLEAR FUEL
* MAXIMUM PRESSURE
(More: AlertNet.org News Source)
2002 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan