US:The United States revealed intelligence yesterday it believes shows North Korea helped Syria build a suspected nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel last year, a step that may complicate its diplomacy on the Korean peninsula and in the Middle East.
In breaking its official silence on the mysterious September 6th Israeli air strike, the Bush administration is taking the risk that Syria could be angered by the public disclosures and could seek to retaliate against Israel.
The closed-door briefings to US lawmakers could also make it harder for the US to carry out a multilateral agreement under which N Korea promised to disclose all of its nuclear programmes and, ultimately, to abandon them and any nuclear weapons it may have.
A US official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to discuss classified matters, said that among the intelligence the United States has was an image of what appeared to be people of Korean descent at the facility.
However, the official stressed this image was only part of a wider array of data gathered from many sources on the suspected co-operation between Syria and N Korea.
Meanwhile, Syria's president Assad said yesterday that he was ready to negotiate with Israel through Turkey to "find common ground" for peace, but that any talks must wait until a new US president is elected. -