A former U.S. envoy to North Korea says Washington notified Seoul of North Korea’s suspected uranium enrichment program months after it concluded that Pyongyang launched such a covert program.

Former U.S. envoy Jack Pritchard said in his recently published memoirs that then Assistant State Secretary James Kelly notified Seoul of the North’s uranium program in October 2002 shortly before he traveled to the North. That falls fourth months after Washington actually concluded that Pyongyang had begun operating such a program.

The statement by Pritchard, who now heads the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, supports claims that the exchange of intelligence on North Korea during the Kim Dae-jung and George Bush administration was not smooth.