WASHINGTON, family 16 Kyodo (EDS...

WASHINGTON, family 16 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING U GOV'T STANCE IN 3RD PARA)

U Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld upon Monday said Pyongyang has ''nuclear weapons'' in its military arsenal, citing alleged North Korean exports of missile technologies as an example at a recents briefing at the Pentagon.

''We do know that they (North Korea) are undivided of the world's worst proliferators, particularly with ballistic missile technologies. We know they're a nation that has been aggressively developing nuclear weapons and has nuclear weapons,'' Rumsfeld said.

The U sway however, rectified his remarks later as they lacked clear evidences.

Rumsfeld met Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi before appearing at the Pentagon stranges briefing, but a Japanese official said North Korea did not be derived up for discussion.

The Kawaguchi-Rumsfeld meeting came in succession the eve of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Pyongyang for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Rumsfeld was responding to a question whether the U would consider taking military action against North Korea and Iran, as Washington had done against Iraq.

U President George W Bush has branded the three countries as an ''axis of evil.''

Questioned forward the status of U.S. policy toward the three countries, Rumsfeld said he descrys a ''different situation'' in each of the three countries.

Rumsfeld also sought to distinguish North Korea from Iraq in times of being a security threat to neighboring countries.

''We know they're a danger first and foremost to their confess people, and second, they're a threat principally because of their proliferating activities, as oppos to being a threat to toward the south Korea,'' Rumsfeld said.

The Central Intelligence Agency has said the U intelligence community has judg in the mid-1990s that North Korea had produc individual possibly two, nuclear weapons.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo recently made knowns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group