MOSCOW: North Korea, one of George Bush’s “axis of evil” states, is sounding out Russia over contracts to build a nuclear power plant in an attempt to escape the curbs on its nuclear arms and energy programmes.

While the White House refused for the first time to certify that North Korea was complying with a 1994 agreement freezing the regime’s nuclear programmes in return for US aid, a senior North Korean official was in Moscow for talks that included the subject of nuclear co-operation.

Choe Thae Bok, head of the North Korean parliament, met Ilya Klebanov, Russia’s industry minister, for talks on ambitious railway and energy projects linking Russia’s far east with the Korean peninsula.

“While discussing power engineering co-operation, the head of the Korean delegation raised the possibility of building a nuclear power plant,” said Sergei Zhiltsov, spokesman for the industry ministry.

The talks indicate that North Korea is seeking to break out of its nuclear straitjacket and reinvigorate its nuclear ambitions.

Under agreements dating back to 1994 after international alarm over their withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the North Koreans agreed with the Americans to freeze their nuclear weapons programme and mothball two nuclear power plants.

International experts believe that none the less Pyongyang has produced, and may still be producing, enough weapons-grade plutonium for several nuclear bombs and has a ballistic missile delivery systems capable of striking Alaska and the US west coast.

Russia’s atomic energy ministry said there had been “no official appeals” from the North Koreans, but sources confirmed the nuclear topic was broached unofficially.

Moscow is hedging its bets and says it is unlikely to proceed without the kind of international safeguards the North Koreans are eager to bypass.

The regime of Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean leader, is seeking to cash in some of the credit he obtained in Russia during a rare foreign trip last year when he had talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Under the 1994 deal, a US-backed consortium is to build two nuclear power plants in North Korea powered by light-water reactors, which are deemed to be less “proliferative” in furnishing weapons-grade plutonium or uranium.

The plants were originally scheduled for completion by next year but are not now expected to be finished for years.

The US-North Korean agreement also requires access for nuclear inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

But with Pyongyang furious at being dubbed part of the ‘axis of evil’ and then revealed to be a potential target for America’s nuclear arsenal, the agreement may be breaking down.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.