Pat Dollard

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SEOUL, Feb. 22 (AP) – (Kyodo)—The United States has presented to South Korea a video of a Syrian nuclear reactor believed to have been built primarily by North Korea, a Seoul daily reported Friday.

Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill showed the video to Kim Byung Kook, senior secretary for foreign and security affairs for President-elect Lee Myung Bak on Wednesday, the Munhwa Ilbo said, quoting an unidentified South Korean government official.

“The U.S. side also conveyed its judgment that this (Syrian) nuclear reactor has been built with North Korean nuclear technology,” the official was quoted as saying.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee Yong declined to comment on the news report at a regular press briefing Friday.

“I am not in a position to talk about intelligence matters,” Cho said.

Hill, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, traveled this week to China, South Korea and Japan to prepare for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to the three countries next week.

Hill has also told South Korea that North Korea, in its declaration of nuclear weapons program, should include what kind of technology has provided to build the underground nuclear reactor in Syria.

Suspicions have surfaced over North Korea’s possible nuclear cooperation with Syria since an Israeli airstrike on Syria in September last year.

The target was reported to be a nuclear facility under construction in cooperation with North Korea.

The six-party talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear weapons program have stalled since Pyongyang missed an end-of-2007 deadline to reveal all the details of its nuclear activity, in breach of an accord with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.