BEIJING, Jan 17: North Korea has ‘weaponised’ enough declared plutonium stocks to produce four to five nuclear bombs, said Selig Harrison, a US expert just returned from talks with officials in Pyongyang.

Harrison told reporters in Beijing on Saturday that North Korean officials also told him “the weapons cannot be inspected”.

Harrison, speaking about his visit to the North from Jan 12, said he talked with four North Korean officials, including the foreign ministry official in charge of relations with the United States.

Harrison said he was told “North Korea wants friendly relations with the United States”.

He was also told that if the Obama Administration makes a political decision for improved relations then “the DPRK and the United States can become intimate friends”.

Harrison also quoted the official as saying that North Korea was not in a position to say when it might commit itself to nuclear disarmament.

He said the North Korean official told him that they had “already weaponised 30.8 kilograms of plutonium” that was listed as part of the North’s nuclear declaration, adding that they had said “the weapons cannot be inspected”.

Harrison said he understood that amount was enough to make four or five nuclear weapons.

North Korea has delayed implementing a nuclear disarmament agreement struck at six-party talks in Beijing, unwilling to accept verification rules demanded by the other countries in the talks and claiming they have not abided by their aid vows.

Harrison is a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, a policy institute in Washington, D.C. His visit to the isolated North came days before President-elect Barack Obama enters the White House.—Reuters