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U.S. dismisses N. Korea's claim Libya's nuke abandonment led to bombings: State Dept.
By Hwang Doo-hyong

WASHINGTON, March 22 (Yonhap) -- The United States Tuesday dismissed North Korea's claim that Libya's abandonment of its nuclear weapons programs resulted in the recent bombings of the North African state by the U.S. and its allies and called on the North to abide by its denuclearization pledge for better relations with the U.S.

Mark Toner, State Department spokesman, was reacting to the North Korean Foreign Ministry, which said earlier in the day that the air raids on Libya justify Pyongyang's military-first policy focusing on its nuclear armament as a deterrent against invasion.

"Where they're at today has absolutely no connection with them renouncing their nuclear program or nuclear weapons," Toner said. "It's a good thing that they did because if they had such weapons of mass destruction, and they turn weapons so easily against their own people, then God help us."

After years of negotiations, Muammar Qaddafi announced in 2003 he would abandon his programs for the development of weapons of mass destruction in return for improved ties with and economic assistance from the U.S. and its western allies. Washington normalized ties with Tripoli in 2006.

Toner said the air raids on Libya have nothing to do with Qaddafi's nuclear dismantlement, but with military attacks on civilians.

"Qaddafi made a decision when he turned weapons against his own people and conducted an armed military campaign, and vowed to show no mercy on the several hundred thousand residents of Benghazi," the spokesman said. "The international community came together to take action to stop that humanitarian disaster. For me to say that that's some kind of retribution for giving up nuclear weapons is -- I don't see how the argument holds."

Toner fell short of ensuring Washington will not attack Pyongyang after the latter's denuclearization, if it occurs, just saying, "I'm not going to go there."

"We've made quite clear that North Korea needs to engage in a more constructive way in the region and it needs to live up to its commitments in the joint communique and it needs to denuclearize," he said. "And if it takes those steps, then it can engage with the international community in a more constructive way."

The six-party talks on North Korea's denuclearization have been stalled for more than two years over U.N. sanctions for the North's nuclear and missile tests and most recently Pyongyang's sinking of a South Korean warship and shelling of a border island that killed 50 people last year.

North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and test-fired ballistic missiles three times -- in 1998, 2006 and 2009 -- which were seen as a partial success.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in January that North Korea's missiles and nuclear weapons will pose a threat to the U.S. within five years. Some experts say Pyongyang may have already developed nuclear warheads small enough for missile payloads.

The foreign ministry's statement came as an Austrian scholar predicted the war in Libya will hinder international efforts toward North Korea's nuclear dismantlement.

"The latest developments in Libya will have a strong effect on North Korea," Ruediger Frank, a professor at the University of Vienna, said in a contribution to the Web site "38 North," specializing in North Korean affairs. "The North Koreans must feel alarmed, but also deeply satisfied with themselves. After all, this is at least the third instance in two decades that would seem to offer proof that they did something right while others failed and ultimately paid the price."

Frank was referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Mikhail Gorbachev's "foolish belief that his policies to end the arms race and confrontation with the West would be rewarded by respect for the Soviet Union's existence and support for its faltering economy" was betrayed by "Western support of anti-communist governments in its European satellites and independence movements in various former Soviet Republics," the scholar said.

In Iraq, Hussein's compliance with Western control over half of his airspace "did not save Hussein's regime from allegations of hiding weapons of mass destruction, and ultimately from complete annihilation in the Second Gulf War," he said.

North Korea has said that Hussein's failure to secure a nuclear arsenal led to his collapse.

Then-South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, currently U.N. secretary general, visited Tripoli in 2005 and urged Qaddafi to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to abandon nuclear weapons.

Speaking at the National Press Club here through a video conference from Libya in April, Qaddafi dismissed calls for his government to persuade North Korea and Iran to quit their nuclear weapons programs.

"The problem is that Libya has not been compensated for its good deed," the Libyan leader said.

"The Libyan example is not attractive to them because Libya has not made any big gain, for example, using the nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. So we really don't have much of a strong argument that we can use with Iran or North Korea."

The U.S. and its European allies began aerial attacks on Libya last week under the authority of the U.N. Security Council to protect the lives of civilians. Qaddafi's forces have attacked revolutionaries who took control of the eastern part of the oil-rich North African state.

"In the eyes of the North Korean leadership, all three countries took the economic bait, foolishly disarmed themselves, and once they were defenseless, were mercilessly punished by the West," Frank said. "It requires little imaginative power to see what conclusions will be drawn in Pyongyang. If there was anybody left at all in the elite who would dare try to persuade his leaders to sit down with the West and find a way to denuclearize, he will now be silent. Those who thought that the economic price of the military-first policy was too high will stand corrected. Not yielding an inch on the nuclear question will continue to be the key paradigm of North Korea's foreign policy for the foreseeable future."

Few analysts see the chances of any imminent collapse of the impoverished, nuclear-armed North Korean regime, citing tight control of information, the lack of a civil society, and investment in the status quo by the military and ruling elite.

North Korea has shown no sign of vulnerability despite a chronic economic crisis and severe food shortages.

"When the various uprisings began in North Africa and the Middle East in January 2011, the combination of wishful thinking and a lack of knowledge led some to hope for a similar process to occur in North Korea," Frank said. "Drawing such parallels, however, overlooked the very different domestic situation and the dim chances for a coordinated grass roots movements in the DPRK."

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is North Korea's official name.

dh@yna.co.kr