North Korea has started to extract plutonium from spent fuel rods at its nuclear arms plant, its foreign ministry said today, further raising regional tensions already stoked by its defiant rocket launch this month.
The announcement came hours after a UN Security Council committee yesterday placed three North Korean companies on a UN blacklist for aiding Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs, eliciting a sharp rebuke from a North Korean envoy.
Reclusive North Korea has lashed out at being punished for the April 5th launch, widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test that violated UN resolutions, saying it would boycott six-way nuclear talks and bolster its nuclear deterrent.
"The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the Foreign Ministry statement dated April 14th," North Korea's official news agency KCNA quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
"This will contribute to bolstering the nuclear deterrence for self-defense in every way to cope with the increasing military threats from the hostile forces," it said.
South Korea's foreign ministry said it had no immediate comment on the North's announcement and Japan said it would urge Pyongyang to resume international nuclear talks.
"The UN Security Council... is telling North Korea to respond to the calls for resuming the six-party talks at an early stage. Japan will also try to persuade (North Korea)," Kazuo Kodama, a spokesman at the Japanese foreign ministry, said.
Reuters