Israel: North Korea adds to Mideast proliferation

[October 04, 2008]  VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Israel accused North Korea on Saturday of supplying at least half a dozen rogue Mideast regimes with nuclear technology or conventional arms. World powers, meanwhile, urged Pyongyang to stop reactivating its weapons-producing atomic program.

The comments, at a 145-nation Vienna meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, focused on the North's black market role and its reversal of a commitment to mothball its nuclear activities in exchange for trade and security guarantees.

In the latest setback, U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill finished a three-day trip to the North to try to salvage a six-party disarmament pact after North Korea reversed the dismantlement of its nuclear facilities. He was hoping to draw the regime back to the negotiating table with an offer of a face-saving compromise.

Hill then traveled to Beijing, where he held talks with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday, nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei. The two met for about an hour, said Richard Buangan, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

China is North Korea's main ally and Wu represents China in stalled six-nation negotiations that also involve both Koreas, Japan and Russia. Hill later met the Russian ambassador before heading to Tokyo.

Hill did not speak to the media about the talks.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood in Washington told reporters the North was still moving equipment from its nuclear facilities it had put in storage back to its original location

.

In Vienna, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea urged the North to honor its nuclear pledge, shortly before the gathering - the IAEA general conference - passed a resolution expressing the same sentiments.

North Korea's actions "will cause serious consequences to the prospect of the six-party talks," said a South Korean statement referring to North Korea and the five nations engaging it on the nuclear issue - the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia. Japan expressed "serious concern" about the North's moves and urged it to return to the terms of its disarmament for aid deal with the other five countries.

Israeli delegate David Danieli accused Pyongyang of being a black market supplier of conventional arms or nuclear technology to Middle East nations covertly trying to break out of the nonproliferation fold.

While he did not name suspected culprit nations among the "at least half dozen" countries availing themselves of the North's help, he appeared to be referring in part to Iran and Syria, which are both under IAEA investigation.

Additionally, U.S. officials have said that North Korea's customer list for missiles or related components going back to the mid-1980s include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Concerns about Iran focus on its refusal to scrap a secretly developed uranium enrichment program that could be retooled to produce fissile warhead material should Tehran choose that path. Tehran is also suspected of hiding past efforts to develop a nuclear weapons program.

Syria surfaced on the IAEA's radar screen after Israeli warplanes last year destroyed what the U.S. says was a reactor of North Korean design that - when completed - was meant to produce plutonium. Both Damascus and Tehran - which is under U.N. sanctions for its atomic defiance - deny having weapons ambitions.

Diplomats have told The Associated Press that the IAEA has been forwarded intelligence that outlines years of extensive cooperation between the Syrians and teams of visiting North Korean nuclear officials.

Western intelligence agencies also have reported that Iran's Shahab-3 missile is based on a North Korean rocket, though Tehran denies it.

According to U.S. officials and outside experts, Pyongyang has sold its military goods to at least 18 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East.

North Korea's catalog has included ballistic missiles and related components, conventional weapons such as mobile rocket launchers, and nuclear technology.

U.S. government officials have said that A.Q. Khan - the Pakistani scientist who confessed in 2004 to running an illegal nuclear market - had close connections with North Korea, trading in equipment, facilitating international deals for components and swapping nuclear know-how.

In 2004 then-CIA Director George Tenet testified before Congress that North Korea had shown a willingness "to sell complete systems and components" for missile programs that have allowed other governments to acquire longer-range missiles.

"The Middle East remans on the receiving end of the DPRK's reckless activities," Danieli told the meeting, alluding the North by its acronym

"At least half a dozen countries in the region ... have become eager recipients" of the North's arms and nuclear sales, he said.

North Korea had been disabling its nuclear facilities at its Yongbyon complex but abruptly stopped in mid-August, citing Washington's refusal to remove it from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The disarmament process snagged over Washington's request that the North agree to a verification system to account for its nuclear arsenal as a condition for removing the country from the terrorism list.

North Korea exploded a nuclear device in 2006. The North is believed by experts to have produced enough weapons-grade plutonium to make as many as 10 nuclear bombs before agreeing to dismantle its weapons program early last year.

[Associated Press; By GEORGE JAHN]

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.