NORTH KOREA said yesterday it was closer to finding a second way to enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons, the latest statement to send a shiver of fear around a region already on high alert over the isolated Stalinist state’s nuclear ambitions.
Analysts read the statement as a tactic aimed at putting pressure on the international community, especially the US, after a month in which North Korea had made a number of conciliatory gestures.
Pyongyang said reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods was in its final phase, and that extracted plutonium was being weaponised.
The North made the announcement in a letter to the head of the UN Security Council (UNSC). Pyongyang is angry over the way the international community imposed sanctions after its rocket launch in April, but ignored a South Korean launch last month.
The April launch was reportedly to place a communications satellite in space, although many believed it was to test a ballistic missile with the potential to reach US territory. The North has already tested two plutonium-based nuclear devices, the one in May triggering tightened international sanctions. The North said its latest steps were in response to tighter sanctions.
“Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase,” the North’s KCNA news agency said, quoting the UN letter.
Washington’s chief envoy for the North, Stephen Bosworth, said the enrichment claim was “of concern”. He has just arrived in Beijing on a trip to Asia to discuss ways to bring Pyongyang back to long-stalled negotiations on giving up its nuclear ambitions.
The North has long been suspected of having a secret programme to enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons. Experts believe the North is a long way off developing a full-scale uranium programme, and say it probably has enough plutonium for six to eight bombs.
The North is keen for direct talks with Washington. It repeated its opposition to six-country talks over its nuclear weapons programme, talks it walked away from last year. The talks involving the two Koreas, US, China, Russia, and Japan offered Pyongyang massive aid if it were to halt attempts to build nuclear weapons.
