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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday claimed North Korea has built eight nuclear weapons. In an interview with CBS presenter Katie Couric in Amman, Jordan on Tuesday, Obama said, "North Korea, when we weren't talking, developed eight nuclear weapons... And when we started talking, we've now arrived at a possibility where we could get those nuclear weapons and those systems dismantled."
Turning to Syria, Obama said there was ¡°sufficient evidence¡± that Damascus had been ¡°developing a site using a nuclear -- or using a blueprint that was similar to the North Korean model," which was then bombed by Israel last September.
He stressed the need for dialogue even with hostile countries like North Korea and Iran. Speculation centers on why Obama mentioned a number for the North's nuclear weapons when the Bush administration has been reluctant to reveal its own estimate. The Bush administration is apparently worried that if it did, it might send the wrong signal that it is recognizing North Korea as a nuclear state.
Obama¡¯s estimate may be based on U.S. inferences, since the 18,000 pages of documents on its nuclear programs which the North delivered to the U.S. earlier do not specify how many bombs it has.
On the assumption that Obama, as the Democratic presidential candidate and frontrunner, would not have pulled the figure out of a hat, diplomatic sources in Washington speculate that U.S. intelligence authorities may have provided leaders of the Democratic Party, which controls Congress, with the information.
But speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. government official told the Chosun Ilbo by phone the figure is just an estimate and nobody knows the exact number of the North¡¯s nuclear weapons.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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