Kim Raises the Stakes
	North Korea declares itself a nuclear power and spurns the six-party talks, dashing hopes that Kim Jong Il can be coaxed down from his diplomatic ledge
	By Bill Powell

	YOU SUNG-HO / REUTERS  ANGER: Activists burn a North Korean flag at a protest in Seoul

Posted Monday, February 14, 2005; 20:00 HKT
It has been more than three years since U.S. President George W. Bush labeled North Korea a charter member of his "axis of evil," and ever since then, the opaque, hard-line Communist state has lurked just offstage, never quite becoming the U.S. Administration's foreign-policy crisis of the moment. There was the invasion of Afghanistan, then a war in Iraq that has been far messier than the Bush team ever anticipated. And there was the fact that all the while, as the North's intention to wield nuclear weapons persisted, as it demanded that Washington stop treating it as a pariah, the Administration struggled to come to grips with what, exactly, to do about it.

Now, the crisis that Washington didn't want may finally be at hand. And it comes at a moment when Bush's options for dealing with it are, at best, limited. Last week, for the first time, Kim Jong Il's government declared publicly that it already has nuclear weapons, and that it is determined to "bolster" its arsenal, ostensibly to fend off what it calls a "hostile" U.S. bent on regime change. The North also said it would refuse to show up at the fourth round of the so-called six-party talks. That is the diplomatic dance Washington had settled upon to try to pry Pyongyang from its nuclear desires, and which involved getting all of North Korea's neighbors—South Korea, China, Japan and Russia—to persuade it to come back from the brink, presumably in return for diplomatic and economic benefits.

That effort has now run aground. The Bush Administration, and its negotiating partners in East Asia, bravely tried to put a business-as-usual, "there-they-go-again" face on North Korea's statement. China "has noted [North Korea's announcement] that it will indefinitely suspend the six-party talks, and hopes that the six-party talks will continue," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Beijing. He didn't even mention the nuclear declaration. Newly minted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that Washington, for its part, wasn't surprised by what the North said. "The fact is, we have for some time taken account of the capacity of the North Koreans to perhaps have a few nuclear weapons," she said. The world had offered "a way out," she added, referring to the six-nation talks, "and they should take that way out."

In truth, this was anything but a business-as-usual moment. The Administration's worst nightmares about a nuclear North have apparently been realized. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Bush included North Korea in his axis for one reason: it was a nation known to sell ballistic missiles and other weapons abroad in return for hard currency, and it seemed intent on building the Bomb, if, indeed, it hadn't done so already. Bush's point was clear: the North might peddle nukes, or the means to make them, to buyers bearing hard currency, Osama bin Laden included. The U.S., Bush insisted, could not allow that to happen.

As if to bolster that determination, early this month the President dispatched two members of his National Security Council to Beijing, bearing a letter to his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao. China is the only country on earth thought to have any influence over the regime in North Korea—the oil and food Beijing provides is Pyongyang's lifeline—and the message from Bush was simple. It was time to get serious about dealing with the North. The letter's contents were straightforward, and stark. The U.S. Administration, Beijing was told, possessed solid evidence that North Korea had sold uranium hexafluoride—a necessary ingredient in the process of making a nuclear bomb—to Libya as recently as 2003. China had previously expressed skepticism about U.S. claims that the North was trying to build a weapon by enriching uranium. Here was proof, the letter said. Not only did North Korea have such a program, it was selling some of the products of it on the nuclear black market. The letter, says one Administration official, "made an impression" on the Chinese.

Continued...

	Kim's Great Game [Jun. 14, 2004] The U.S. can't seem to stop him. Asia doesn't know if it loves or hates him. So the position of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il looks stronger than ever Joining the Club [Jun. 25, 2003] North Korea claims it has the Bomb, pushing the nuclear deadlock over the red line It Is a Crisis [Mar. 03, 2003] North Korea's atomic ambitions are real. So, too, is the prospect of a nuclear arms race across Asia Family Feud [Dec. 18, 2002] China's patience for North Korea's diplomatic brinkmanship has worn thin Northern Exposure [Nov. 18, 2002] North Korea is a monolithic black box to the rest of the world, but stress cracks can be seen in the aspiring nuclear power Look Who's Got the Bomb [Oct. 21, 2002] Confronted by the U.S., North Korea brazenly admits it's building nukes. Now what does President Bush do? More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine