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U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
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Suspicions over a nuclear connection between North Korea and Syria are dividing the Bush administration in the U.S., the New York Times reported Saturday. "A dispute has broken out between conservatives and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the administration’s pursuit of diplomacy with North Korea in the face of intelligence that North Korea might have helped Syria design a nuclear reactor," the daily said.
In recent days, Vice President Dick Cheney has reportedly urged Rice to reconsider her North Korea policy, pointing to the rumor. Rice reportedly countered this by saying that President George W. Bush was briefed on the intelligence and issued a statement in support of talks with Pyongyang early this month.
The neocon hardliners in the Republican Party are also moving to hold Rice in check. The former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton, a hardliner on Pyongyang, has taken the lead in drumming up support from Republican congressmen . Meanwhile, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has submitted to the committee "an opinion article questioning the White House approach, which offers incentives to North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program."
The Times and Newsweek magazine on Saturday carried copies of a satellite image showing that progress had been made in the construction of a building suspected to be a nuclear facility in Syria in 2003. This satellite image was taken by GeoEye, a private organization, on Sept. 16, 2003. It suggests that construction started around 2000.
The NYT predicted that the image may give ammunition to those in the administration who call for diplomacy. If North Korea started its Syrian aid so long ago, the officials could argue that the assistance was historical -- in other words, before the six-party talks on North Korean nuclear program started in August 2003, and that diplomacy should move ahead.
Still, North Korea will not be immune from responsibility. In its agreement with Washington during the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1994, North Korea promised to stay in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- and that bans the proliferation of uncontrolled nuclear programs. It would be possible to argue that the North Korea attempted to transfer a nuclear program and technology to Syria in breach of the agreement, which envisaged giving Pyongyang a light-water reactor in return for the freezing of its nuclear facilities.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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