`No evidence N.K. planning nuclear test`

By Lee Joo-hee and news reports



The nation`s top intelligence chief said yesterday Seoul and Washington have been closely following North Korea`s construction of underground tunnels in a northeastern region of Gilju County for years but there`s no evidence of nuclear test plans.

"There is no evidence yet on whether (North Korea) has set out for a nuclear test," National Intelligence Service Director Ko Young-koo said at a luncheon meeting with the National Assembly`s intelligence committee members,

Ko denied recent reports there had been activities such as digging a special tunnel and construction of a reviewing stand, which might indicate the possibility of a test.

"We have been closely monitoring (the region) and there have not been any signs that indicate this," Ko was quoted as saying by Uri Party lawmaker Im Jong-in. He said the monitoring had been in place since since the late 199os.

Amid teetering hopes of an early resumption of the six-party talks, North Korea announced earlier this week it had completed withdrawing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods from its Yongbyon nuclear plant.

Ko said the government views the announcement as an attempt by Pyongyang to add pressure on Washington to change its "hostile" position by showcasing that its nuclear weapons are no bluff.

The six-party talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, have been stalemated by a North Korean boycott since the last round in June.

The other members of the six-party talks have been coalescing efforts to get North Korea back to the negotiation table, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill arrived in Seoul yesterday for a four-day visit that will include talks with Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and his nuclear negotiations counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon.

The former U.S. ambassador, whose family is still here until the end of the school term, visited South Korea barely a week ago as part of his first tour around the key member countries involved in the six-party talks.

Song himself has just returned from a brief trip to Washington.

Moves to deal with the North Korean standoff are expected to accelerate with Hill`s talks here and coming summit meetings.

Hill will meet Song for an hour-long discussion Monday and then call on Ban. Song and Hill will also meet next week at a ASEAN meeting in Laos.

Working-level talks between South Korea, China, Japan and Russia are expected to continue, and Chinese President Hu Jintao is believed to be firming up plans for a trip to Pyongyang, Beijing`s closest ally.

Next month, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is slated to meet U.S. President George Bush in Washington and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Seoul.

Roh held separate summits earlier this week with Hu and Russian President Valdimir Putin while attending Moscow celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Japan is considering five-party talks to apply further diplomatic pressure on North Korea if Pyongyang persists in its boycott of the six-party negotiations, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said yesterday.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official, speaking to reporters in Tokyo on condition of anonymity, said that the five countries - Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States and China - had not yet agreed on whether to hold such a meeting.

"It`s not that we have reached a consensus yet, but we are considering various ideas," the official paraphrased Machimura as telling reporters.

In Washington, the Bush administration pledged Thursday to step up its efforts to stem human rights abuses in North Korea and said it would soon name a special envoy to deal with the issue.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate appropriations committee that more attention must be paid to the worrisome rights record of a regime whose nuclear weapons program has dominated headlines.

"We`ve identified a special envoy for North Korean human rights. There should be an announcement of that very soon," she said.

"We do need to shine more of a spotlight on the human rights issues in North Korea," she said. "And we`re working with homeland security and with others about what we might be able to do on North Korean refugees."

The post of U.S. special envoy was mandated in the North Korean Human Rights Act signed by President Bush nearly seven months ago.

Republican Senator Sam Brownback, sponsor of the legislation, said, "There is probably no greater humanitarian crisis on the Earth today than in North Korea." he cited estimates that 10 percent of the population had died from starvation or deprivation in the past decade.

On the nuclear front, the United States had little new to say after North Korea reported Wednesday it had unloaded 8,000 spent fuel rods from its Yongbyon reactor and planned to reprocess them to make bombs.

Rice reiterated her appeal to Pyongyang to avoid isolating itself and rejoin the six-party talks.

At the United Nations, Brazilian diplomat Sergio de Queiroz Duarte, president of a month-long conference reviewing the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, said Thursday that delegates have decided not to take a decision on whether North Korea is in or out of the treaty.

The U.S. television network ABC has sent a team of four journalists into North Korea to report on the communist state`s efforts for its own market-based economic reforms, a government official said in Seoul.

State-run KBS television reported the journalists were planning to interview North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and are expected to spearhead a documentary about North Korea`s market-based reforms after July 2002.