US says less confident of NKorea covert programme

WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) The United States is somewhat less confident that North Korea has a production-scale covert nuclear enrichment programme than it used to be, a top US intelligence official said.

The official, Joseph DeTrani, stressed the need for Pyongyang to reveal all of its nuclear programmes -- including the nature of its uranium enrichment activities -- as part of a February 13 agreement with the United States, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

In 2002, when the Bush administration first accused Pyongyang of covert enrichment, ''the assessment was with high confidence that, indeed, they were making acquisitions necessary for, if you will, a production-scale programme,'' said DeTrani, North Korea mission manager in the office of the director of national intelligence, yesterday.

''And we still have confidence that the programme is in existence -- at the mid-confidence level,'' he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He was the second senior US official in recent days to publicly discuss US uncertainties about North Korea's enrichment programme.

In 2002, the CIA said Pyongyang's activities included construction of a plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more bombs annually by 2005.

Last week, chief US negotiator Chris Hill acknowledged specific gaps in US knowledge about whether the North had the technology and material needed to produce highly enriched uranium fuel for weapons.

The administration's allegations about the programme in 2002 caused a 1994 US-North Korea nuclear agreement to unravel.

After that, Pyongyang increased its nuclear arsenal from one or two weapons to as many as a dozen and tested a nuclear device.

The North initially acknowledged the covert programme, US officials say, but since then have denied it.

Under the first 60-day implementation stage of the new February 13 deal, the North is supposed to disable its main plutonium-producing nuclear complex at Yongbyon in return for 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil.

Getting Pyongyang to compile a comprehensive list of nuclear activities to be abandoned during future stages of the agreement -- including the HEU programme -- is another main task of the first phase.

DeTrani, who previously was US negotiator with North Korea, said the HEU programme is ''still on the table, and North Korea still must answer the issue of their acquisitions of materials, to include centrifuges'' acquired from Pakistan.

The February 13 agreement ''speaks of all nuclear programmes.

And, indeed, the North Koreans are very aware of when we speak of all nuclear programmes, we are also including their acquisitions of materials necessary for production-scale uranium enrichment programme,'' DeTrani said.

''And we still see elements of that programme,'' he added.

Reuters SBA VP0748