Ending Crisis Not Urgent for N. Korea, Expert Is Told

WASHINGTON — North Korean officials told an American expert on Korea that they saw no urgency in ending the impasse over their nuclear weapons programs because delays would give their country more time to expand its nuclear arsenal.

Charles L. “Jack” Pritchard, a former State Department official, met with the North Koreans last week as part of a private American group that was allowed to tour North Korea’s main nuclear site at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, the capital.

Pritchard said he was told by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan: “Time is not on the U.S. side. Lapses of time will result in quantitative and qualitative increases in our nuclear deterrent.”

He said that during their nine-hour discussion, Kim also denied that North Korea was pursuing a uranium bomb, contradicting U.S. intelligence and Pyongyang’s own admissions to U.S. officials in 2002.

“I heard what I heard,” Pritchard said, referring to North Korean statements to a U.S. delegation 15 months ago. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, “They admitted it.”

Pritchard said the denial could pose a major problem for the Bush administration as it seeks the complete dismantling of the North’s nuclear weapons programs.

He declined to discuss what he saw at Yongbyon, saying he would leave the analysis of that to nuclear experts in the delegation.