China denied statements that North Korea’s new uranium-based nuclear capability has been debated at the United Nations Security Council.

In a meeting with South Korean reporters in Beijing on Monday, Hu Zhengyue, Chinese assistant foreign minister, said that the UNSC has not discussed the North’s uranium enrichment program, which was shown to a U.S. scientist who visited the North in November.

China and the United States, both permanent members of the UNSC, have little knowledge of the program, Hu said.

“What is known so far [about the program] is only what an expert observed from a distance,” Hu told reporters, referring to Siegfried Hecker, the Stanford nuclear scientist who visited the North’s Yongbyon nuclear facility in November.

South Korea and the U.S. have claimed that the uranium program, which could give the North additional nuclear capabilities on top of its plutonium-based weapons, is already on the UNSC’s official agenda. The two allies want the UNSC to come up with a way to regulate Pyongyang’s uranium program, though the North claims it is only for electricity generation.

According to a South Korean government official yesterday, the UNSC started debate on the program around the time that an internal panel’s report, which said that the uranium program was a grave security threat, failed to be adopted by the UNSC’s North Korea sanctions committee on Feb. 23.

China opposed the adoption of the report, which it said could unnecessarily provoke the North.

“The best way to discuss the issue is [resuming] the six-party talks,” Hu said, referring to stalled multilateral talks on the North’s denuclearization. The talks, which are hosted by China, also involve the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan and Russia.


By Moon Gwang-lip [joe@joongang.co.kr]