N Korea to restart nuclear arms plant

N Korea to restart nuclear arms plant
By Christian Oliver in Seoul
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 14 2009 05:57 | Last updated: April 14 2009 12:14
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6f24e02c-28ac-11de-8dbf-00144feabdc0.html


North Korea on Tuesday vowed to expand its nuclear weapons work and restart a reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, retaliating more provocatively than expected against UN condemnation of its recent rocket launch.

Pyongyang said it would never again take part in six-party talks, the diplomatic framework aimed at getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arms. The six parties are Russia, China, the US, Japan and the two Koreas.

“We have no choice but to strengthen our defensive nuclear deterrent in response to increased military threats from hostile forces,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried on the KCNA state news agency.

The communist state had agreed in 2007 to dismantle its Yongbyon atomic plant that experts say was the source of plutonium for up to eight warheads.

“As part of measures to normalise the operations of nuclear facilities, fuel rods which came out of the Yongbyon facilities will be reprocessed,” the foreign ministry said, adding North Korea would also build a light-water reactor.

Japan and Russia immediately urged North Korea to return to six-party talks. China appealed for “all sides to... exercise calmness and restraint... and make concerted efforts to consistently facilitate the six-party talks and denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula.

The UN Security Council on Monday condemned the reclusive nation’s launch of a rocket on April 5. It pledged to tighten existing sanctions and to produce a blacklist of companies and individuals who could face penalties for doing business with Pyongyang.

Diplomats said banks could be among those targeted.

North Korea argued it was exercising its legitimate right to put a satellite into orbit, whereas Japan, South Korea and the US said this was an excuse for carrying out a long-range missile test barred by a previous Security Council resolution.

Choi Choon-heum, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, reckoned Pyongyang was simply trying to force bilateral talks with the US.

“But it will not work because the US will not talk outside the six-party framework,” he said. “North Korea cannot avoid the six-party talks for ever. There is no way for North Korea not to listen to China’s advice.”

Relations between the Koreas are now at their worst in a decade, with Pyongyang accusing Seoul of forcing the peninsula to the brink of war.

Last June, Pyongyang had given some grounds for optimism by blowing up a cooling tower at Yongbyon before international camera crews. However, this proved largely symbolic and Pyongyang was treading water on dismantlement by December.

Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s dictator, is furious that South Korea’s conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, has not courted him in the manner of previous leftist administrations and has made aid contingent on tangible progress in nuclear negotiations.

The North has torn up non-aggression pacts with its richer neighbour and has said that it will no longer recognise a disputed maritime border where sea battles were fought in 1999 and 2002.

Additional reporting by Yang Jie