Russia does not expect North Korea to give up on nuclear development unless relations between Pyongyang and Washington are normalized, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said Sunday. The NIS said in a report presented to the parliamentary Intelligence Committee that Russia thinks despite a Feb. 13 six-nation denuclearization agreement, the North will go ahead with nuclear development unless its ties with the U.S. are restored or neighboring countries change their hostile policies toward Pyongyang.

The report said after the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993, the North continued to develop nuclear weapons to prepare in case the U.S. would not implement the 1994 Geneva Accords and to use them as a new bargaining chip with Washington. North Korea started nuclear development in 1961 to protect its regime amid mounting pressure from neighboring countries and, in particular, the U.S., it said. From Russia’s point of view, it said, Washington drove Pyongyang into further nuclear development by calling the North part of an “axis of evil.”

However, the report says the Russian military doesn’t believe that North Korea has the technology to develop nuclear warheads that can be affixed to missiles or nuclear weapons good enough to produce warheads.

(englishnews@chosun.com )