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China believes N Korea has enough plutonium for nuclear bomb
North Korea's closest ally China believes the Stalinist regime now has
enough plutonium to build a nuclear bomb, according to an Asian Wall
Street Journal report.
It was this realisation that accelerated Beijing's diplomacy to defuse
the crisis, which saw Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo
dispatched to Pyongyang last Saturday, the report said quoting
diplomats.
Dai is now in Washington to brief top US policymakers on the outcome
of his rare meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.
The newspaper said Chinese intelligence services concluded in recent
weeks that North Korea is producing weapons-grade plutonium in
sufficient quantities and has all the necessary components to assemble
nuclear-tipped missiles.
Quoting diplomats in Beijing and a European official familiar with
internal Chinese reports on the findings, it said the reprocessed
plutonium is estimated to be enough to make at least one nuclear
device.
The European official however said Pyongyang has yet to fashion the
plutonium, triggering devices and other components into a bomb.
The report goes some way to verifying recent Pyongyang claims, which
the US has been unable to confirm, that a number of spent nuclear fuel
rods, sealed in 1994, have been opened and have undergone
reprocessing, ostensibly to produce plutonium.
US and South Korean officials have already speculated that North Korea
may have one or two nuclear bombs and may have the capicity to build
about six.
Until now, China has maintained that no evidence existed that North
Korea was seeking nuclear weapons.
Beijing's growing anxiety however has been evident in the new urgency
seen in the flurry of diplomacy this week.
At a foreign ministry briefing on Thursday, spokesman Kong Quan said
the North Korean standoff was at a "critical moment".
"What China is doing is lowering the temperature, promoting talks and
encouraging the two sides to make peace," he said.
"It is important to get the parties back to the negotiating table and
continue the Beijing talks," he said, referring to trilateral talks in
April which ended bitterly with Pyongyang saying it possessed and
might test nuclear weapons.
According to US officials in Washington, the prospects for new talks
have brightened with the North appearing ready to join another
negotiating session with China and the United States.
There were also signs that the dialogue, which South Korean officials
have been quoted as saying could happen as early as next month, could
be expanded to include Japan and South Korea.
The United States has always insisted on multilateral talks and has
been eager to include its Japanese and South Korean allies. North
Korea has consistently demanded one-on-one talks with Washington.
An impatient Beijing has stressed the number of participants is not as
important as getting the talks going again.
As a traditional ally and supplier of food and fuel to the North,
China is the country with the biggest leverage over Pyongyang.
And it has shown it is prepared to pull its weight.
Earlier in the crisis, it reportedly halted oil supplies for several
days in annoyance at the North, and just two days after Kim granted
Dai the rare meeting Monday, the regime's Korean Central News Agency
announced that China "recently decided to donate 10,000 tons of diesel
oil" to Pyongyang.
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