dmbfan
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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 Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:45 am Post subject: North Korea is at it again......... |
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North Korea makes threat after missed nuclear date Thu Jan 3, 11:26 PM ET
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday it would boost its war deterrent, a day after the United States said it was sending its nuclear envoy back to Asia to discuss an atomic disarmament deal on which Pyongyang has missed a deadline.
North Korea failed to fully account for its nuclear weapons program or answer U.S. suspicions that it has secretly tried to enrich uranium for weapons. It was supposed to have made the declaration by the end of 2007.
"(We) will further strengthen our war deterrent capabilities in response to U.S. attempts to initiate nuclear war," the prickly state's communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary.
The North, with one of the world's largest standing armies, usually threatens to bolster its deterrent, often taken to be a reference to its nuclear arsenal, when it feels international powers are not treating it properly.
North Korea has been cooperating on another part of the deal with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States by starting to take apart its ageing nuclear facility that produces arms-grade plutonium, government officials have said.
In a separate report in its official media on Friday, North Korea said it has slowed the pace of disablement because it does not feel that other parties have supplied aid in a timely manner.
Energy-starved North Korea can receive up to 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel oil or aid of equivalent value and see an end to the cold shoulder it receives internationally if it honors the agreement.
Analysts do not expect the missed deadline to scuttle the deal for now but said North Korea may eventually run out of breathing space if it does not provide some sort of inventory of its nuclear arsenal.
The U.S. State Department said it was sending nuclear envoy Christopher Hill next week to Asia and Russia. |
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