N. Korea says blast was from excavation

SEOUL — An explosion that sent a 2-mile-wide mushroom cloud into the sky was the planned demolition of a mountain for a hydroelectric project, North Korea said yesterday, and it invited a British diplomat to visit the site.

Experts from the United States and elsewhere say they don’t believe Thursday’s blast near the Chinese border was a nuclear test.

A Bush administration official said the United States has indications the North is trying to conduct a test. The explosion and concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions sparked a heated back-and-forth between the White House and Democratic presidential challenger Sen. John Kerry.

North Korea denounced the speculation about a nuclear test as part of a “preposterous smear campaign” to divert world attention away from revelations about past South Korean nuclear activities, Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency said.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a U.S. official said it isn’t clear what happened. While the official said there isn’t any reason to believe it was a nuclear test, the official also couldn’t confirm the North Koreans’ explanation that the blast was linked to construction of a hydroelectric project.

A U.N. official said the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which monitors nuclear activity, had not picked up any signs that the explosion was a nuclear blast.

KCNA said “blastings at construction sites of hydropower stations in the north of Korea” had taken place.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun told the same to visiting British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Mr. Rammell said Mr. Paek told him the blast “wasn’t an accident, that it wasn’t a nuclear explosion, that it was a deliberate detonation of a mountain as part of a hydroelectric project.”

North Korea told Britain’s ambassador in Pyongyang, David Slinn, that he could visit the blast site as soon as today to verify its explanation, the Press Association of Britain reported.

Andrew Kennedy, head of the Asia program at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the North Korean explanation has “a ring of truth to it.”

“North Korea is usually trying to convince people that they do have a nuclear capability. … It’s not in their interest to keep a nuclear test quiet,” he added.

There was no comment from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose inspectors were told to leave North Korea after it quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty last year.

The size of the reported explosion on the 56th anniversary of the founding of North Korea had raised speculation that it might have been a nuclear test. But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Sunday there was no indication the blast was from a test.

Mr. Kerry said just the idea that the United States was thinking North Korea might test a nuclear weapon highlights a national security failure by President Bush.

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