October 3, 2003	Friday	Sha’aban 6, 1424

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SEOUL, Oct 2: North Korea raised the stakes in the nuclear standoff on Thursday, saying it had produced enough weapons-grade plutonium for half-a-dozen atomic bombs as a step towards boosting its nuclear deterrent.

The statement also indicated North Korea would pull out of six-way talks on ending the year-long impasse, complaining that Washington has failed to meet its demand for a non-aggression pact.

A North Korea foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement the Stalinist state had successfully completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods, guaranteed to yield enough plutonium for around six nuclear weapons.

“As we have already declared, the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) resumed nuclear activities for a peaceful purpose ...,” said the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

“As part of it, the DPRK successfully finished the reprocessing of some 8,000 spent fuel rods,” the statement added.

“We will reprocess more spent fuel rods to be churned out in an unbroken chain from the five megawatt nuclear reactor in Nyongbyon (Yongbyon) without delay when we deem it necessary.”

The statement also indicated the reprocessed fuel was already being used to build more bombs.

It said that after reprocessing, North Korea “made a switchover in the use of plutonium churned out by reprocessing spent fuel rods in the direction increasing its nuclear deterrent force.”

The United States believes North Korea has already developed one or two nuclear weapons and that reprocessing the fuel rods will yield enough plutonium for around six more within months.

Three days of talks in Beijing in late August, bringing together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States, ended inconclusively.

“As far as the resumption of the six-way talks is concerned, the DPRK did not make any promise with anyone at the Beijing talks and the same holds true even after the talks,” it said.

“As the United States has no intention to drop its hostile policy, the DPRK will consistently maintain and increase its nuclear deterrent force as a just self-defensive means to repel the US preemptive nuclear attack and ensure peace and security on the Korean peninsula ...”

North Korea claimed it had begun reprocessing the spent fuel rods to make weapons-grade plutonium in April just prior to a first round of six-way talks aimed at resolving the crisis. In June, it said the process was almost completed.

US and South Korean officials said they had no way of verifying the claim although South Korea’s intelligence chief said in July that evidence pointed to reprocessing of “a small portion” of North Korea’s stockpile of spent fuel rods.—AFP