SEOUL, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- North Korea's declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons has raised key questions: Does the isolated Communist country really have atomic arms? Or was last Thursday's statement merely an attempt at blackmail to win concessions from the international community? Why did Pyongyang drop its longstanding strategy of maintaining ambiguity to publicly announce its nuclear weapons capability?
Officials in Seoul remain doubtful that North Korea truly has an atomic bomb, saying last week's declaration does not necessarily mean Pyongyang has tested a nuclear weapons system that can be deployed.
"It is premature to conclude North Korea possesses nuclear weapons," a senior official said Monday, noting there was no evidence that the country had ever conducted a nuclear test.
South Korean officials suspect Pyongyang's latest move is but another attempt at brinkmanship ahead of diplomatic negotiations. They say North Korea wanted to raise the stakes while U.S. attention was focused on Iran's nuclear programs in order to obtain better terms when they eventually agree to talk. North Korea has engaged in brinkmanship in the past at crucial diplomatic junctures.
In its announcement last week, North Korea's Foreign Ministry declared publicly and officially for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons and said it would refuse to return to the stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear programs because of hostile U.S. policies.
The six nations are North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. Since 2003, China has hosted three rounds of talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons development in exchange for economic and diplomatic rewards.
Thursday's declaration was a departure from Pyongyang's long-standing "NCND" (neither confirm nor deny) position over nuclear weapons.
North Korea has long skillfully employed a "strategy of ambiguity," playing a diplomatic tug-of-war with the United States over its nuclear weapons programs.
Pyongyang had asserted its right to have atomic weapons, but had remained ambiguous as to whether they already existed, causing confusion among U.S.-led allies over how to deal with the country's nuclear ambitions. Diplomats had used the term "nuclear deterrence force," which could mean atomic bombs or the technology to make them.
Government officials and many analysts here interpret the North's public announcement of its nuclear capability as an effort to increase its bargaining power in the multilateral negotiation process.
But some North Korea experts say Pyongyang's sudden declaration of being a nuclear weapons state is largely aimed at tightening control over its people amid growing tensions with the United States over the nuclear standoff.
"The move seemed aimed at tightening domestic control over the people by planting a mood of military tension across the country with mounting U.S.-led pressure on the North's nuclear drive," said Choi Jin-wook, a researcher at the Korean Institute for National Unification, a government think tank.
Choi said North Korea has been more concerned about a U.S. move to shake the Kim Jong-Il regime than about Washington's military threats to the reclusive country.
North Korea has taken a series of steps to raise tensions and tighten control over its hungry population, for fear that increased threats from outside over the nuclear issue could spark internal threats or opposition to the communist leadership, he said.
With no signs of a revival of the country's tattered economy, cracks were starting to show in the Kim family's control over North Korea. Unprecedented leaflets and posters opposing Kim's rule have appeared in the watertight society, along with rumors of a power struggle.
North Korea has responded by attempting to create a war mood on the Korean Peninsula. The leadership has accused the Bush administration of secretly seeking regime change in Pyongyang under cover of diplomatic gestures, citing the U.S. human rights bill, passed last year, which authorizes $24 million per year in aid for North Korean refugees who flee their country.
The government has also stirred fears by repeated warnings of military clashes on its loosely defined and tense western sea border with South Korea.
The North's military accused the South of infiltrating a warship into the communist state's waters following "a grave situation created due to the U.S. imperialist war hawks' invariably hostile policy toward the (North)."
At the start of the new year, Pyongyang staged public rallies aimed at uniting the people in the face of these perceived threats, calling for their unswerving loyalty toward their leader, Kim Jong Il.
A New Year's message issued Jan. 1 expressed the fear that the United States might use military force to resolve the tension over its nuclear weapons program, and called for "single-minded unity" among the people.
In the latest move, the top brass of the North Korean military gathered for a rally last week and pledged "absolute" loyalty to their commander, Kim Jong Il. They included Jo Myong Rok, the No. 2 man in the country's powerful military, and Kim Il Chol, minister of the People's Armed Forces, among others.
The country's 1.1-million-strong armed forces, the world's fifth largest, are the backbone of Kim's iron-fisted rule. Officials from the ruling Workers' Party and the Cabinet and young students also held separate meetings to pledge their loyalty to Kim.
"At a time like today, when the situation gets tense, no task is more important than to strengthen our single-minded unity," the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a recent edition, referring to the nuclear standoff.
"The public rallies seem to be aimed at sending a message to the outside world that Kim Jong Il is in firm control of the North despite incessant rumors of cracks in his leadership," said Chun Hyun-joon, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
