North Korea said today it will "immediately" reactivate nuclear facilities frozen under a 1994 US-North Korean accord.
The North Korean foreign ministry stated it would scrap the agreement to freeze its nuclear facilities and reactive the programme, which was needed for power production, according to the official North Korean Central News Agency.
Pyongyang's move to restart its nuclear programme would effectively kill off the Agreed Framework, which has been badly weakened for the past two months since the United States revealed in October that Pyongyang had admitted it was again seeking to produce nuclear weapons.
"It is totally up to the United States whether we will refreeze our nuclear facilities again," the North Korean statement said.
A US-led international consortium decided in November to cut off fuel supplies to punish Pyongyang for its suspected nuclear weapons programmes.
Under the accord, Pyongyang pledged to freeze its atomic ambitions in return for the consortium's help in building two light-water reactors and the annual delivery of 500,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil.
The South Korean government has called an emergency security meeting in response to the North Korean threat.
AFP