WASHINGTON -- With North Korea refusing to allow inspection of a huge underground construction site that could be used to hide a nuclear reactor, Clinton administration officials acknowledge that a 4-year-old agreement meant to freeze North Korea's nuclear weapons program could collapse within weeks.
The 1994 agreement, which the administration has hailed as among its proudest foreign policy achievements, was supposed to end the threat that North Korea would build a nuclear arsenal.But the discovery of the vast underground installation and North Korea's continued development of ballistic missiles have led many administration officials to wonder whether the agreement will have to be scrapped.
Under the so-called Agreed Framework, the North Koreans were promised billions of dollars in energy assistance, including two new nuclear reactors, the waste from which would be far harder to turn into warheads. In return, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear weapons program.
The North Koreans, frustrated by delays in the construction of the two new nuclear plants and by economic sanctions that have worsened a famine there, have described the administration's threat to break the agreement as virtually a declaration of war.
Senior Clinton administration officials say that the North Koreans will be told in negotiations this month that the agreement will unravel unless North Korea allows a team of dozens of U.S. inspectors complete access to the underground installation that is being built 25 miles from the North Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon. Aerial photographs show thousands of North Korean laborers working at the site.
The North Koreans insist that the project is intended for civilian use. But a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said last week that U.S. intelligence information offers "very convincing" evidence that the mountainside facility will be used by North Korea to re-create its nuclear program.