North Korea Reportedly Operating Secret Nuclear Facility

The United States suspects North Korea is operating two nuclear weapons facilities, one at the already known site of Yongbyon and another at a secret location, according to a senior U.S. defense officials quoted in The New York Times.

According to the newspaper, the U.S. based the new reports on measurements of krypton 85, a gas emitted during plutonium production. Officials believed that emissions detected in North Korea did not come from Yongbyon, but the evidence was not conclusive.

South Korean officials downplayed the news, a spokesman for South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun calling the reports “low in reliability,” and warning that they could affect the regional economy.

“The president expressed concern about the phenomenon of unclear and groundless media reports throwing cold water on our economy,” Kim Man-soo said, according to the Associated Press.

President Bush also addressed the North Korean issue today, again calling for multilateral talks among the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China.

“I do believe we can solve this issue diplomatically by encouraging the neighborhood — the Chinese, the South Koreans and the Japanese — to join us with a single voice that says to [North Korean President] Kim Jong Il, ‘A decision to develop a nuclear arsenal is one that will alienate you from the rest of the world,’ ” President Bush said.

Talks have stalled because North Korean negotiators have insisted on bilateral meetings with U.S. officials. However, the United States, South Korea and Japan– which are all within range of North Korean missiles– have held out for multilateral talks.

The Korea Times reported talks among China, the North and the United States could begin soon. Under a plan put forward by China, the trilateral meeting would be followed by the multilateral talks.

“The United States wants to pursue the multilateral talks by linking three-way talks with a five-way session,” Lee Soo-hyuck, a South Korean deputy foreign minister, told the Transportation Broadcasting Network. “China needs to talk again with North Korea about this U.S. proposal.”

The international community’s renewed calls for talks coincided with North Korea reissuing on Monday a demand released in January for a non-aggression treaty with the United States, as well as talks based on “fairness, equality and trust.”

“If the United States dropped its hostile policy toward [North Korea] and legally committed itself to non-aggression, the latter would be ready to dispel the U.S. concern,” KCNA, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, said in a commentary, according to Reuters.

Concerns over the North’s nuclear program increased in April, when the officials from Pyongyang said their government was reprocessing spent uranium rods, a step necessary to produce weapons-grade plutonium. It later denied that it was reprocessing but, rather, “going forward to reprocess” the nuclear material.