N. Korea claims it has nuclear arms

UNITED NATIONS – North Korea has turned the enriched uranium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons to serve as a deterrent against a possible nuclear strike by the United States, a North Korean minister said Monday.

Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula “is snowballing,” Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon blamed the United States for intensifying threats to attack the communist nation and destroying the basis for negotiations to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Without specifying what kinds or the number of weapons it has, Choe said North Korea has been left with “no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent” because of U.S. policies that he claimed were designed to “eliminate the DPRK by force while designating it as part of an ‘axis of evil’ and a target of pre-emptive nuclear strikes.”

DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name.

When asked if the fuel had been turned into actual weapons, not just weapons-grade material, Choe said: “We declared that we weaponized this.”

In Washington, a State Department official noted that the administration has long believed North Korea has at least one or two nuclear weapons. The official, who asked not to be identified, also said the North Koreans have made conflicting statements about how far along their weapons development programs have come.

But Choe told the U.N. General Assembly that North Korea is still ready to dismantle its nuclear program if Washington abandons its “hostile policy” and is prepared to coexist peacefully.

At the moment, however, he said “the ever intensifying U.S. hostile policy and the clandestine nuclear-related experiments recently revealed in South Korea are constituting big stumbling blocks” and make it impossible for North Korea to participate in the continuation of six-nation talks on its nuclear program.

A State Department official said North Korea should take part in the discussions and noted that Secretary of State Colin Powell has said repeatedly that the United States has no plans to attack that country.

At a press conference afterward with reporters, the North Korean ambassador was asked what was included in the nuclear deterrent.

“We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms,” he said.

Julie Enzer, head of the Washington-based Nuclear Policy Research Institute, when asked about Choe’s comments, said “it certainly sounds like they’ve taken the spent fuel rods and further enriched them to be weapons grade uranium and put them in some kind of weapon.”

North Korea said earlier this year that it had reprocessed the spent nuclear fuel rods and was increasing its “nuclear deterrent” but had not provided any details.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said in late April that it was estimated that eight nuclear bombs could be made if all 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods were reprocessed. Before the reprocessing, South Korea said it believed the North has enough nuclear material to build one or two nuclear bombs.

North Korea and South Korea have been divided since the Korean War. Choe reiterated that Pyongyang’s goal remains the peaceful reunification of the countries.

Choe accused U.S. “unilateralism and high-handedness” of trying to sabotage reunification and charged that Washington is deploying sophisticated war equipment targeting North Korea.

“On the Korean peninsula … the danger of war is snowballing owing to the U.S. extreme moves to isolate and stile the DPRK and threats of preemptive strikes against it,” Choe said.