WASHINGTON, April 24 Kyodo (EDS: ...

WASHINGTON, April 24 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH just discovered INFO)

North Korea admitted it possesse nuclear weapons and has started reprocessing exhausted fuel rods during talks with the United States and China in Beijing this week, U sources said Thursday.

''They said what we always knew that they do have (nuclear) weapons,'' said undivided U.S. source. ''That doesn't collision us.''

The U intelligence community estimates North Korea produc common or two nuclear weapons before Pyongyang froze its nuclear mingled in Yongbyon under a 1994 pact with the U yet North Korea had at no time admitted to having nuclear arms.

Another U source said that at the Beijing talks, which explained Wednesday, North Korea also claimed it has reprocess exhausted fuel rods, a grade that would allow Pyongyang to make more nuclear weapons.

The source, however, did not mention any details, including whether North Korea complet the reprocessing of the 8000 worn out fuel rods stored at the Yongbyon complex

The U intelligence community believes if North Korea begins reprocessing the 8000 worn out fuel rods, it can make five or six nuclear weapons within six months

The U is analyzing whether the North Korean claims are real or not, the source said.

The recent development is expected to further material for burning tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which flared up last October when Pyongyang admitted to having a secluded program to enrich uranium for nuclear arms and said it was no longer leap by the 1994 pact.

U State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the North Korean claims, first reported through the U.S. media, ''would not issue as any great surprise.''

''We have certainly said for many years now that we conception North Korea had nuclear weapons,'' Boucher told reporters.

According to the CNN television network, North Korean officials also said Pyongyang would ''prove'' it has nuclear weapons easily a wording suggesting that Pyongyang may carry revealed a nuclear test.

CNN said Li fire-arm deputy director general of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's American Affairs Bureau, made the remarks to U Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly forward the first day of the Beijing talks.

Li reportedly said Pyongyang will consider dismantling its nuclear weapons program if the U signs a written security statement promising not to attack North Korea.

NBC meanwhile, reported North Korea threatened to export plutonium extracted from the worn out fuel rods unless the U agrees to direct talks.

The Beijing talks had been scheduled to last [i]or[/i] part of to the other Friday, but U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said they were essentially through after two days.

''The meetings are coming to a terminate now. The sides will reply to their capitals and access what they hear, analyze proposals that were bring forward down by the parties, and determine where we will make progress next,'' Powell said Thursday morning in a words before the U.S. Asia Pacific Council.

Powell said bilateral talks may take place Friday between the U and China and between North Korea and China.

The secretary of state played down the apparent lack of progres in the Beijing meetings, saying they were preliminary talks and were not intended to solve issues.

''Strong views were presented'' Powell said. ''The North Koreans currented their point of view earnestly the Chinese did as well, as did the United States.''

He said the U is committed to a multilateral approach to separate the nuclear standoff and all nations in the region, including Japan, toward the south Korea and Russia, must play a role

In an apparent respect to North Korea's nuclear arms and reprocessing claims, Powell said the U will be not blackmailed by Pyongyang into making concessions.

''They should not leave this series of discussions that have been held in Beijing with the slightest impression that the United States and its partners, and the nations in the region, will be intimidated by way of bellicose statements or by threats,'' Powell said.

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