Moreover, when asked five years later about nuclear inspections planned by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to see if the North had fulfilled the agreement, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, replied, “There is no way other than we declare our possession of nuclear weapons in five years and confront the United States,” the report says.

According to the magazine, Hwang Jang-yop, former secretary of the North Korean Labor Party, made the revelations at a meeting on Oct. 29 with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and Undersecretary of State John Bolton.

“All external affairs related to the development of nuclear weapons were under the responsibility of three people, including myself, when I was the international secretary of the party, and the director for foreign affairs and the secretary for South Korean affairs. Before the conclusion of the Geneva Agreement in October 1994, Kim Jong-il called two meetings on the issue,” Hwang is quoted as saying.

“At one meeting, Jeon Byeong-ho, then secretary of munitions, reported to Kim Jong-il that all preparations for underground nuclear testing were set, but there was no need to hurry the testing because nuclear bombs don’t go bad,” Hwang said.

In response to the report by Jeon that North Korea would have no choice but to undergo international inspections five or six years after signing the Geneva Agreement, Kim replied that the North would then declare its possession of nuclear weapons and confront the United States, Hwang said. He added that the North began to push forward the development of nukes with enriched uranium around 1997.

Hwang said that he didn’t know how many nuclear weapons were actually produced in the North, but that Park Song-bong, a high-ranking official of the North Korean Worker’s Party who died in 2001, insisted that more must be manufactured.

Regarding the North’s development of nuclear weapons using enriched uranium, Hwang said, “By 1996, Jeon said the North would no longer have to buy plutonium from Russia, and I heard in 1997 that some uranium came from Pakistan.”

At a meeting of Defense Forum held at the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 31, Hwang was asked by reporters whether there was a chance North Korea would give up its nuclear program. “Kim Jong-il is thinking of continuing the nuke development, no matter what,” he replied. (Kim Yeon-kwang, yeonkwang@chosun.com )