North Korea Pledges Not to Sell Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists

North Korea Pledges Not to Sell Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists. May. 04, 2004 20:54. by Hyung-June Park Jung-Ahn Kim lovesong@donga.com credo@donga.com.

Senior members of the North Korean regime promised never to sell nuclear materials to terrorists including al-Qaeda, reported the British daily newspaper Financial Times on Tuesday.

The Financial Times said, “North Korea has offered an olive branch to the U.S.” in its headline article about the visit to the communist regime made by the director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy. Director Selig Harrison visited North Korea from April 20 to 24 and met Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People`s Assembly, Paik Nam-soon, foreign minister, and Kim Gye-gwan, vice foreign minister.

Kim Yong-nam told Director Harrison, “We`re entitled to sell missiles to earn foreign exchange. But in regard to nuclear material our policy past, present and future is that we would never allow such transfers to al-Qaeda or anyone else. Never.”

He also said that it would be possible to scrap the nuclear development program step by step, but that the regime would not accept the "CIVID" policy, which calls for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea`s nuclear program.

He also added that North Korea does not want to suffer the fate of Iraq, the Financial Times reported.