SEOUL - North Korea has poured all its resources into developing nuclear weapons, including a likely scheme to enrich uranium, the highest official from the communist state to defect to the South said on Thursday. Hwang Jang-yop was the architect of the North's Juche ideology, an extreme form of self-reliance advocated by the North's late founder Kim Il-sung.Hwang was head of international relations at the Workers' Party of Korea, the ruling communist party, and a close confidant of current leader Kim Jong-il, before defecting in 1997. "It is a small country, but it has thrown all its strength behind the programmes from the very beginning," Hwang told a forum organised by South Korea's opposition Grand National Party.
Hwang said he had been told by the communist party's secretary heading armament responsibilities in 1996 that the country had decided to begin a uranium-enrichment programme. He said his knowledge of the North's nuclear programmes was indirect, but said he had lengthy discussions with Kim Jong-il, who appeared set on boosting the country's stockpile of nuclear materials, despite a 1994 pledge to stop development.
Kim was determined to maximise the nuclear potential, Hwang said, but his main objective—at least initially—was to boost the country's defensive leverage against the United States. "What Kim Jong-il is most afraid of is the United States," Hwang said.
He spoke of a 1994 episode in which he was asked by Kim to import more plutonium. "Wouldn't it be good to have a little more?" Hwang quoted Kim as saying.
Hwang questioned the usefulness of the six-party process, saying the countries were being manipulated by Kim to attract attention to the impoverished state and raise the stakes.
There was greater discord within the North and discontent toward the leadership now, but it would be a mistake to talk of a collapse of Kim's power, Hwang said. "Kim Jong-il's skills as a dictator are superb." Contrary to common belief outside the North, Kim had effectively been the national leader long before his father's death in 1994, beginning in the 1970s, Hwang said.
The key to the North's survival was in China's hands, he said. It was not unusual for Kim's aides in the military and communist party to question the system's capacity to survive, but Chinese influence should ensure it continued, Hwang said.
He called South Korea's rise from the rubbles of the Korean War "a miracle," adding: "If I had brought Kim Jong-il with me, it would have been so good."