North Korea plans to allow a US group to visit a nuclear complex to prove it is not bluffing about its progress toward making more atomic weapons, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper and source in Japan said yesterday.
The Jan. 6 to Jan.10 visit by a group that includes a nuclear scientist, congressional aides and a former diplomat comes as the US and its allies try to reopen talks with North Korea to end its nuclear programs.
The Tokyo-based People's Korea (Joson Sinbo) reported North Korea was expected to show the Yongbyon nuclear complex to the US, following through on an offer it had first made in October to US congressmen whose trip was later cancelled.
A diplomatic source close to North Korea said in Tokyo the Yongbyon visit was likely because Pyongyang wanted to "show how serious it is about nuclear development."
"It could be the last chance before North Korea decides whether to declare itself a nuclear state and negotiate with the United States," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Earlier this week North Korea offered to freeze its nuclear arms program and stop nuclear power generation. The US, South Korea and Japan welcomed the step and said it suggested the North was preparing for talks.
The People's Korea report repeated what North Korea had said in October, when a bipartisan congressional delegation led by Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, was to visit Pyongyang. The trip was scrapped due to opposition from the Bush administration.
"North Korea said it was prepared to let the delegation visit the nuclear facility in Yongbyon, as desired by the delegation, so that it might watch on the spot the completed reprocessing and the switchover made in the use of plutonium obtained," it said.
"The congressional trip was cancelled because of opposition from the White House, but this time the tour of the Yongbyon nuclear facility is likely to be realized for the nuclear experts," the newspaper added.
The US delegation is headed by John Wilson Lewis, a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He told reporters before departing Beijing for Pyongyang on Tuesday he did not know whether the group would visit Yongbyon.
Washington has kept the delegation at arm's length, saying efforts to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons must concentrate on six-way talks involving China, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas and the US. It is unclear when the talks will take place.
In Tokyo, Japan's Kyodo news agency said China was set to propose that the next round of talks accept a freeze of the North's nuclear arms program as a first step.
Quoting sources in Washington, Kyodo said the Chinese proposal would serve as a compromise by backing off from the harder stance of the US, which calls for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible" dismantling of Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS