
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 18, 1994                   TAG: 9405180095
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: OTTAWA                                LENGTH: Medium

PERRY WARNS OF NUCLEAR THREAT

The United States could be only weeks away from a major crisis with North Korea if the Communist nation refuses to cooperate with international nuclear weapons inspectors, U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said Tuesday.

The standoff with North Korea "represents a very substantial near-term crisis," Perry said in a speech to a Canadian defense group. The time frame is defined by the number of weeks it would take North Korea to convert spent fuel from a nuclear reactor into weapons-grade plutonium.

"We don't know exactly what the number of weeks is, but we have that number of weeks to get this problem resolved," Perry said in a news conference after the speech.

"If we don't have it resolved at the end of this time, then they may have processed this spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium and we would have lost that opportunity to stop that event from happening."

If North Korea continues to refuse to allow international inspectors to watch the process of withdrawing the fuel, the Clinton administration has said it would ask the United Nations to impose sanctions. North Korea has said that such a move would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

"I do believe that this is rhetoric on the part of the North Koreans," Perry said. But he added that the United States, which has 35,000 troops stationed in South Korea, must be prepared for the possibility that the threat is real.

"The objective of the United States has been to curtail this [nuclear weapons] program before it gets started," Perry said.

The nuclear fuel in question could be processed into enough plutonium to construct four or five bombs, according to Perry.

Perry said the situation represents a crisis, not only because time is running out but "because of the potential that there will be in time the involvement of nuclear weapons."

by CNB