By Chris Buckley
BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea has "weaponised" enough declared plutonium stocks to produce four to five nuclear weapons, said Selig Harrison, a U.S. expert just returned from talks with officials in Pyongyang.
Harrison, speaking about his visit to the North from Tuesday to Saturday, said he talked with four North Korean officials, including Li Gun, the foreign ministry official in charge of relations with the United States.
Harrison said he was told "North Korea wants friendly relations with the United States" and that if the Obama Administration makes a political decision for improved relations, then "the DPRK and the United States can become intimate friends."
Harrison quoted Li as saying that Pyongyang was not in a position to say when it might commit itself to nuclear disarmament.
He said the North Korean official told him that they had "already weaponised 30.8 kilograms (68 lb) of plutonium" that was listed as part of the North's nuclear declaration -- an amount he understood could make four to five weapons -- adding that they had said "the weapons cannot be inspected."
The officials all told him the members of six-party talks have been told that Pyongyang had weaponised the declared plutonium, Harrison said.
The U.S. scholar said the North Koreans would not say how the plutonium had been "weaponised" but indicated it was used for missiles, he said.
Separately, he said, he got "flat denials" about claims that North Korea has sought to enrich uranium.
FINISH LIGHT-WATER REACTORS
Harrison said he could not vouch for the credibility of Norkor's weaponisation claims. But he said they would make negotiations more difficult.
"It's a gloomy prospect," he said of the outlook for the six-party talks.
North Korea has delayed implementing a nuclear disarmament agreement struck at six-party talks in Beijing, unwilling to accept verification rules demanded by the other countries in the talks and claiming they have not abided by their aid vows.
Harrison said North Korea is also demanding construction of two unfinished light-water reactors in return for dismantling Yongbyon and that verification of its nuclear activities would hinge on the United States and South Korea also agreeing to open their nuclear weapons activities in the South to similar verification.
"That's certainly raising the bar," he said.
The officials provided no firm information about North Korean leader Kim Jung-il's health, Harrison said, but added he seems to be "not working as he did before on a full-time schedule."
Harrison is a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, a policy institute in Washington, D.C. His visit to the isolated North came days before President-elect Barack Obama enters the White House.
Besides Li, the officials he met with were Vice President of the Supreme People's Assembly Kim Yong-tae, spokesman of the National Defence Commission Ri Chan-bok, and Foreign Minister Pak Ui-son.
North Korea's state media said earlier on Saturday Pyongyang would not give up its nuclear ambitions as long as a U.S. nuclear threat persists.
"It will be wrong if the United States thinks that we are giving up nuclear programme in exchange for normalising diplomatic ties with them," the spokesman was quoted as saying by the official Korea Central News Agency.
"We have prospered for decades with no ties with the United States and what we want is bolstering our nuclear deterrent power to protect our country, not normalising the relationships... There'll be no change in our status as a nuclear state as long as U.S. nuclear threat remains."
North Korea has often pledged to get rid of its nuclear programme, but has dragged its heals in disarmament talks for the past 15 years despite being offered sweeteners to lift its economy out of desperate poverty.
President George W. Bush's top Asia adviser had predicted earlier this week that North Korea might try to raise the stakes in order to increase its leverage after Obama takes office on Tuesday.
MIXED SIGNALS
Obama and his designated secretary of state, Sen. Hillary Clinton have indicated they will continue and probably enhance the George W. Bush administration's effort to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons in six-nation talks involving regional powers.
Last-ditch efforts by the Bush administration to win North Korea's agreement on a system to verify its nuclear history and disarmament progress ended in stalemate at the end of 2008.
The secretive North has sent mixed signals in the past few weeks about how it will conduct its nuclear dealings. It appeared to have extended an olive branch to Obama in a New Year's message that said it was willing to work with friendly countries.
The impoverished and isolated North was hit with U.N. sanctions after an October 2006 nuclear test.
North Korea's already weak economy will be dragged down even further the longer the nuclear talks are stalled because Washington has called for a suspension of most aid to North Korea for not abiding by the disarmament deal.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert, Arshad Mohammed and Miyoung Kim; Editing by Ken Wills and Bill Tarrant)