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North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon, attending the U.N. General Assembly, made official North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons by saying, "We reprocessed the 8,000 spent fuel rods, and we've already declared we weaponized them." Of course, this wasn't the first time North Korea had made a comment suggesting it had developed nuclear weapons. Since last year, North Korea has said several times that it was "accelerating the strengthening of its nuclear deterrent" and had "successfully completed the reprocessing of its 8,000 spent fuel rods," and during the six-party talks, it also said it would "no longer produce nuclear weapons," as if it already possessed nuclear weapons.
This time, however, with the thing previously referred to vaguely as a "nuclear deterrent" being openly revealed as "weaponized" plutonium, the international community's "red line" is being directly threatened. We do not know what North Korea had its eye on when it talked of "nuclear weapons," but it may encourage only a tougher response from the international community, as mentioned by the State Department spokesperson who said North Korea's statement "just reinforces the need to eliminate nuclear weapons programs on the Korean Peninsula"
If it is to highlight the failure of the Bush Administration's North Korea policy, it's even more dangerous. This is because even a Kerry-led Democratic White House would likely feel even more intense pressure than the Bush administration from hardline opinion concerning the North Korean nuclear issue.
What is even more frustrating is our government. This time, too, our government said, "North Korea has been claiming a nuclear deterrent to confront U.S. hostile policies, and this latest statement doesn't represent a development from that." The government did not express any feelings of resistance or concern; on the contrary, it gave one the feeling that it shared with North Korea its view of U.S. North Korea policy as "hostile policy." This has lead the international community to believe South Korea doesn't consider North Korean nuclear weapons a threat.
Moreover, North Korea has been doing this while keeping in mind South Korea's attitude of trying to understand everything from North Korea's perspective. The result of that has been that whenever warning or statements of concern are expressed against North Korea, North Korea considers South Korea's true heart to be with Pyongyang. The international community, too, thinks South Korea doesn't truly believe in the warnings or expressions of concern about North Korea, causing a credibility crisis for Seoul.
As North Korea continues to do things like this while staring clearly at South Korea's inner mind, the international community will come to distrust South Korea, and Seoul will grow increasingly estranged from the international community. President Roh Moo-hyun's statement that there was "no reason to rush" concerning North Korea was a prototypical example lending strength to North Korean attempts to "use South Korea" and the international community's "reading of South Korea's inner intentions."
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