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N Korea says explosion was demolition job

A huge cloud that billowed up from North Korea several days ago was part of the planned demolition of a mountain for a hydroelectric project, the BBC quoted the country's foreign minister as saying yesterday.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun was responding to a request for information about the blast from British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, who is visiting Pyongyang, the BBC quoted Rammell as saying.

South Korean and US officials had already said they did not believe the blast was a nuclear explosion but said its cause was a mystery.

Meanwhile, US presidential hopeful John Kerry slammed President George W. Bush's North Korea policy amid reports of the blast.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that a mammoth explosion in North Korea produced a mushroom cloud more than three kilometers across.

The huge size of the explosion on Thursday, the 56th anniversary of the foundation of North Korea, had raised speculation that it might be a nuclear test. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said there was no indication it was.

In an interview with the BBC, Rammell said Paek told him "that it wasn't an accident, that it wasn't a nuclear explosion, that it was a deliberate detonation of a mountain as part of a hydroelectric project."

Rammell said he welcomed the explanation because North Korea is such a secretive country.

"But I pressed the foreign minister very strongly and said look, you know, if we want to be properly reassured then you should allow international diplomats to actually go to the area and verify the situation on the ground," he said. Paek said he would consider the request, Rammell said.

"If this is genuinely a deliberate detonation as part of a legitimate construction project then the North Koreans have nothing to fear and nothing to hide and should welcome the international community actually verifying the situation for themselves," Rammell said.

Yonhap said the blast was stronger than an April explosion that killed 160 people and injured an estimated 1,300 at a North Korean railway station when a train carrying oil and chemicals apparently hit power lines. North Korea invited international aid workers to visit the site, an unusual move for the reclusive regime.

On Fox News Sunday, Powell expressed skepticism that North Korea would stage a nuclear test explosion.

The North Koreans "know this would not be a sensible step for them to take," he said. "And it is not just the reaction that they might see in the United States; it's their own neighbors."

But another senior US administration official said on condition of anonymity that the US has received indications North Korea might be trying to test a nuclear weapon.

"The mere fact that we are even contemplating a nuclear weapons test by North Korea highlights a massive national security failure by President Bush," Kerry said in a statement on Sunday as administration officials took to the airwaves to deflect concern over the reports.

"During his administration, North Korea has advanced its nuclear program and a potential route to a nuclear 9/11 is clearly visible. North Korea's nuclear program is well ahead of what [former Iraqi president ] Saddam Hussein was even suspected of doing, yet the president took his eye off the ball, wrongly ignoring this growing danger," Kerry said.

"What is unfolding in North Korea is exactly the kind of disaster that it is an American presidents solemn duty to prevent."
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