MOSCOW, February 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Russia’s Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev for the first time admitted that Russia was selling uranium fuel to South Korea, the Vremya Novostei daily newspaper reported Wednesday, February 5.

Russia “supplies uranium to South Korea for nuclear fuel,” Rumyantsev said in an interview, adding assurances that Russia “has no information that Seoul is working to use nuclear energy for military purposes.”

However, “that country’s potential would allow it to create a nuclear bomb within a couple of years,” the minister added, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Meanwhile, neither Iran nor North Korea, which Washington branded as the “axis of evil” with Iraq, “possesses enough capabilities to produce nuclear weapons,” Rumyantsev clarified.

Washington has long made the case that Iran is building the light-water reactor in Bushehr for nefarious purposes and has frequently called on Moscow, publicly and privately, to halt all of its nuclear cooperation with Tehran.

Meanwhile, North Korea warned Wednesday that it would take strong countermeasures if the United States pushed ahead with plans to reinforce its military presence around the Korean peninsula.

North Korea said the planned U.S. military build-up was Washington’s response to Pyongyang’s proposal to solve the nuclear crisis with a non-aggression accord between the Cold War foes.

“Under such circumstances, our army and people have no choice but to take stronger self-defense measures,” Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a Korean-language dispatch monitored by the South’s Yonhap news agency.

It said the U.S. build-up confirmed that Washington planned an invasion of North Korea.

A U.S. defense official said Monday, February 3, that the Pentagon ordered B-52 and B-1 bombers to prepare for deployment in the western Pacific to back up U.S. forces in South Korea.

The U.S. proposals to boost military presence around the peninsula follow a request by the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Admiral Thomas Fargo, he said. No deployment orders have been given, however.

KCNA issued a similar broadside through its English-language service, accusing the United States of bolstering “huge aggression forces in the Korean peninsula under the pretext of the nuclear issue.”

“All these facts go to prove that the war hysteria of the U.S. imperialists, keen to isolate and stifle the DPRK (North Korea) under the pretext of the nuclear issue, has reached a more reckless phase,” it said.

North Korea has repeatedly said the crisis would only deepen unless Washington agreed to substantive talks on Pyongyang's terms.

Senior aides to U.S. President George W. Bush defended their policy towards the Stalinist state as an envoy of South Korea’s incoming president Roh Moo-Hyun rounded off a two-day visit to Washington on Tuesday, February 4.

“We hope that the United States will take a more active role in engaging in dialogue with North Korea,” envoy Chyung Dai-Chul said after talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Dialogue should be in “an international setting with a multilateral approach,” he said.

The U.S. Republican Party’s senior congressional foreign policy hand sided with Chyung and called for dialogue.

“I believe that United States officials should talk to North Korean officials about ending North Korean nuclear weapons programs with provisions of comprehensive international inspection,” Senator Dick Lugar said.

Meanwhile, Russia reaffirmed its opposition to bringing the nuclear crisis before the U.N. Security Council and urged Washington to open direct talks with Pyongyang.

“Placing the North Korean problem on the U.N. Security Council’s agenda would be counter-productive today,” Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

The United States has been seeking to bring the issue before the U.N., which could impose sanctions, an act Pyongyang says it would view as a declaration of war.

South Korea opposes the imposition of any sanctions against North Korea and has stressed the need for time to allow diplomacy to work. South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, an unwavering advocate of dialogue with the North, on Wednesday said Pyongyang must immediately reverse its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) last month and abandon its nuclear weapons program.

“The North’s development of nuclear weapons must be stopped for not only our safety but for the peaceful co-existence of both Koreas,” Kim said during a meeting with national security and foreign affairs minister, Yonhap reported.

The nuclear stand-off followed U.S. revelations in October that North Korea had admitted to running a secret enriched-uranium program in violation of a 1994 accord under which the Stalinist country froze nuclear activities.

Convoy of Buses to North Korea

Meanwhile, a convoy of buses crossed the world’s most heavily fortified frontier on Wednesday 5 in a test run for the first overland tourist trips to North Korea in half a century. Amid rising tension over North Korea’s nuclear threat, 10 buses carrying around 100 South Koreans snaked over the border in a scene closely monitored by troops from North and South Korea and observed by the U.S. military.

The 100 officials and guests from South Korea’s Hyundai business group crossed the dangerous military flashpoint on a temporary road heading to North Korea's scenic Mount Kumgang some 30 kilometres (18 miles) to the north.

Official tours are scheduled from later this month if the pilot tour goes ahead without a hitch, according to agreements between Hyundai and North Korea.

The tours are part of economic and humanitarian projects between the two Koreas promoted by outgoing President Kim Dae-Jung as part of his signature "Sunshine" policy of engagement with the Stalinist North.

Kim is to step down on February 25 but his successor Roh Moo-Hyun has vowed to continue the policy.

Kim and his administration have vowed to spur on the exchanges despite the crisis sparked by US revelations that North Korea is pursuing a nuclear weapons drive in violation of international accords.

No North Korean troops were on the ground as the buses passed, although guards were believed to be monitoring the convoy from a post near the border.

On the southern side, a U.S. soldier video-taped the scene and an observer from the U.S.-led United Nations Command used binoculars to follow the progress of the convey.