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North Korean blackmail won't work, says Bush

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington april 25. North Korea has apparently acknowledged to the U.S. that it has nuclear weapons but Washington is trying to downplay an impression that Pyongyang has threatened to `use' them. "They said what we always knew, that they do have (nuclear) weapons. That doesn't shock us. We have been saying that. Now they said it,'' an unnamed administration official said. The U.S. President, George W Bush, did not specially refer to the current round of talks in Beijing but pointedly criticised North Korea's proliferation record and stressed that blackmail would not work. "They are back to the old blackmail game and one of our goals and objectives must be to strengthen the non-proliferation regimes.''

Administration officials have said that North Korea had threatened to use the nuclear weapons soon but that the translation of what had been said is still going on. Analysts believe that Pyongyang's threat or promise to `prove' it had nuclear weapons could materialise by way of a sale to a third party. The assessment of the intelligence community here is that North has enough plutonium to make about a half dozen nuclear weapons. "They never used the word `testing'... We're still translating, but it's being overplayed a bit,'' a source has been quoted in The Washington Times. The U.S. has not commented extensively on the Beijing talks. But it has warned Pyongyang it could not be threatened with bellicose statements and threats.

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