Agence France-Presse,
Seoul: North Korea is seeking to gain the upper hand in negotiations over its nuclear weapons programme by again taking issue with the US missile defence system, analysts here say. Citing American efforts to build up a global defence system, Pyongyang warned late Friday it might bolster its “deterrent for self-defence,” a term it usually uses to refer to its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.
Some analysts say the communist state might be preparing the ground for another long-range missile test.
Others believe the North is seeking a new pretext to delay completion of a deal to dismantle its nuclear programme, since a banking dispute that had held up a February nuclear disarmament deal is being resolved.
“The US ever-more undisguised row of finding fault with the DPRK (North Korea) and the arms race escalating in the areas around Korea due to the US moves will only force the DPRK (North Korea) to bolster its deterrent for self-defence,” a foreign ministry spokesman in Pyongyang said.
He said it was “no more than a clumsy pretext” that the US missile defence (MD) system is aimed to deter missile attacks from North Korea and Iran.
“The US is now pushing forward the MD in the direction of besieging Eurasia from both east and west,” he said.
He noted that during the Clinton administration, Pyongyang and Washington came close to a deal on its missiles and Pyongyang declared a moratorium on long-range missile launches.
“But no sooner had the Bush administration taken office than it turned aside these opportunities and pursued one-sided and hard-line hostile policy toward the DPRK, thus compelling it to bolster deterrence including the missile capacity,” he said.
Professor Koh Yu-Hwan of Dongguk University said that by raising the missile defence issue, North Korea was seeking to gain the upper hand in negotiations with the United States.
“Pyongyang is pressing Washington to guarantee security for its system” based on its leader Kim Jong-Il's one-man rule, he told AFP. “The statement might also be aimed at pleasing its traditional allies, Beijing and Moscow.”
Jeung Young-Tae of the Korea Institute for National Unification saw it as a hint that the North might be preparing another long-range missile test.
“Deterrence means nuclear bombs and the means to deliver them to targets. There is a high possibility that North Korea might be carrying out a second long-range missile test as it says it already has the bombs,” he said.
The North staged its first nuclear test last October.
The communist state's missile launches have heightened tensions in the region in the past decade. In 1998 it sparked alarm in Japan by test-firing a long-range missile over that country.
In July last year it test-fired seven missiles, including its Taepodong-2 that in theory could reach the US west coast. Those launches brought UN condemnation and missile-related sanctions.
Analysts say the North is not yet thought to have the expertise to fit a nuclear warhead on a missile.
Baek Seung-Joo, chief of the North Korea Research Team of the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, said the US missile defence system was Pyongyang's new bargaining card.
“It's long been expected that the North would try to find another pretext to drag its feet on implementing the February deal as the banking issue is being resolved,” he said.
North Korea has refused to comply with the February deal to shut its nuclear reactor until it receives 25 million dollars, frozen in Macau in 2005 after the United States raised suspicions of money-laundering and counterfeiting.
Hopes of an end to the four-month standoff rose after Macau officials said last week more than 20 million dollars of funds frozen in Banco Delta Asia (BDA) had finally been transferred.
However a Russian diplomatic source said on Friday that the funds have not yet been fully moved.
