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Originally posted by DClark
Apparently you guys have clothes pins on your noses.
I grew up on a farm, so I know what B.S. smells like and this thread was created from within it.
TOKYO, May 10 (Kyodo) - The United States has told Japan that North Korea has not completed its reprocessing of spent fuel rods, a key step in developing nuclear arms, despite its assertion to the contrary, Japanese government sources said Saturday.
U.S. government authorities tried verifying North Korea's claims, apparently made in trilateral talks with China in Beijing in late April, that it has reprocessed spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.
They concluded Pyongyang has not actually completed the procedure, the sources said.
In Beijing talks, North Korea also told U.S. delegates it has nuclear weapons but is ready to scrap them on condition Washington accepts a list of demands, including economic aid and a written guarantee that it will not attack.
But since the U.S. decided North Korea's reprocessing claim was just part of the reclusive communist nation's brinkmanship diplomacy, Washington and Tokyo do not see the situation as critical, the sources said.
When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush hold talks on May 22-23 in Texas, they are expected to carefully discuss ways to deal with the North Korean nuclear standoff.
According to the sources, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly, who attended the trilateral talks, told Japanese officials the North said it has completed almost all of the reprocessing of 8,000 fuel rods.
U.S. authorities then studied the movement of people around a reprocessing facility at Yongbyon, gathered intelligence and considered information from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who were kicked out of North Korea late last year.
They decided there was not enough time to have reprocessed 8,000 fuel rods and the activities of people around the facility were too limited to be conducting procedures of such a scale, the sources said.
Kelly told Japan that the North said it ossesses ''nuclear bombs'' but he did not specify how many, the sources said.