North Korea vowed today to strengthen its nuclear deterrent, dismissing the United States' call for multilateral talks as a tactic to isolate it over its atomic ambitions.
"We will step up the strengthening of our nuclear deterrent force as a justified self-defence measure to counter the threat increasing daily from the US strategy to isolate and stifle North Korea," North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued through Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency.
The Korean-language statement was published by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
The statement came as US Secretary of StateColin Powell said there was no issue of greaterimportance to the United States than North Korea's suspectednuclear weapons programmes.
"We can't help a North Korea that does not abandonthe goal of having nuclear weapons," he reportedly told a meeting of foreign ministers in South Korea.