North Korea has made it clear in six-nation talks that it will report its nuclear programs but not its nuclear weapons by year's end.

After the six-party talks came to an end Sunday, the chief North Korean negotiator Kim Kye-gwan reportedly said, "We can't declare nuclear weapons this year, because if we do it at this stage, our nuclear weapons technology level will be revealed." He hinted North Korea wants to keep its nuclear weapons as the last bargaining chip for the negotiations.

The higher the technology level, the easier it is to produce nuclear weapons even with a small amount of plutonium, an official involved in the six-party talks said. That makes it possible to guess the technology level a country has achieved by looking at the number of nuclear weapons it possesses.

North Korea is presumed to keep a stockpile of 40 to 50 kg of plutonium, with which it could make six to 10 nuclear weapons. A senior South Korean official said Seoul is willing to accept North Korea's position. "We've told the North that if it's not possible to declare the nuclear weapons right now, it should provide a sufficient explanation," he said.

Meanwhile, a U.S.-led international technical team will reportedly visit North Korea around mid-October again to set a final schedule for the disablement of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. This team will have new members from South Korea and Japan in addition to the Americans, Chinese and Russians who visited North Korea earlier.

The team will apparently oversee the removal of a total of 10 core nuclear devices from three facilities -- a 5 megawatt atomic reactor, a reprocessing facility and a nuclear fuel rod manufacturing plant -- starting from November.

According to a source, a nuclear technology firm hired by the U.S. will take care of disabling the Yongbyon facilities by year's end. The removed core devices will be stored at one location, and sealed and managed by the International Atomic Energy Agency without allowing North Korea access to them until they are dismantled in 2008.

(englishnews@chosun.com )