작성자 : 
WASHINGTON (AFP) – North Korea will be an "early challenge" for Barack Obama, as the United States remains locked in a tense stand off over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, US President George W. Bush's top foreign policy advisor said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday.
North Korea will test Obama, who takes office on January 20, by trying to split with international negotiations aimed at verifying whether Pyongyang is stepping down its nuclear program, US national security adviser Stephen Hadley said.
"Without this verification agreement, there can be no progress," he said.
The disarmament talks -- involving the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan -- collapsed in Beijing in December after failing to reach agreement on how to determine if the secretive nation is telling the truth about its atomic programs.
Some people in the intelligence community "have increasing concerns that North Korea has an ongoing covert uranium enrichment program," said Hadley, who was to address the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Pyongyang "will test the new administration by once again trying to split the six parties.
"When its efforts to do so fail, North Korea will need to accept a verification agreement -- so we can verify the disablement and then dismantlement of that country's nuclear capabilities."
Hadley, a foreign policy operative with close ideological ties to Bush allies Vice President Dick Cheney and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, is expected to argue that the Asia-Pacific region is of "increasing importance to America's security and economic well being."
Pyongyang, meanwhile, has stepped up its combative tone with Washington.
The ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, accused the United States of planning a preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea.
"The US war-thirsty forces' moves to mount a preemptive nuclear attack are assuming an increasing danger," it said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il visited military units Monday in his first public appearance of 2009.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim as saying North Korea is "invulnerable" and that strengthening the country "is sure to be accomplished as it has this matchless great army that has become steel-strong."
