N.Korea Says It Has Nukes, Shuns Talks

“We had already taken the resolute action of pulling out of the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK,” Reuters quoted North Korean as saying in a statement.

The move raised the stakes in the two-year-old nuclear confrontation between the communist country and the Bush administration and sent shockwaves among neighboring capitals.

“If in fact this is the case, then the North Koreans are only deepening their isolation because everyone … (has) been very clear that there needs to be no nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, in an interview Thursday with RTL television during a visit to Luxembourg, the current EU president, according to the Washington Post.

The North Korean statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, said the communist state possessed nuclear weapons in self-defense against the US attempts to overthrow its government.

The statement, however, stressed that the North Korean nuclear arsenal was purely defensive, adding that Pyongyang still wanted to resort to dialogue to rid the Korean peninsula of atomic weapons.

It was the first official response to Bush’s second presidential term and his team, especially Rice who branded Pyongyang as an “outpost of tyranny” during her confirmation hearing last month, according to Reuters.

“The true intention of the second-term Bush administration is not only to further its policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK pursued by the first-term office but to escalate it,” the Foreign Ministry said.

North Korea accuses Washington of planning an invasion, reinforcing its 37,000 troops already in South Korea with B-1 and B-52 bombers that have been ordered to prepare for deployment to the Korean peninsula.

Threatening Iran

Bush has branded North Korea, Iran and Iraq – before the US invasion-turned-occupation of the Arab country – an “axis of evil”, stepping up pressures on both Pyonyang and Tehran to dismantle their nuclear programs under claims of being used for military purposes.

The Korean admission came in defiance to Bush who said Wednesday that Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a “very destabilizing” force and that it was important for the world to speak with one voice against Tehran’s program.

“The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message: Don’t develop a nuclear weapon,” Bush said.

No Talks

North Korea further said it had no intention to engage in new rounds of the six-way talks on dismantling its nuclear program amid bellicose signs from the Bush administration.

“We have wanted the six-party talks but we are compelled to suspend our participation in the talks for an indefinite period till we have recognized that there is justification for us to attend the talks,” the Foreign Ministry’s statement said, adding it would wait for conditions conducive to positive results.

“The Bush administration termed the DPRK, its dialogue partner, an outpost of tyranny, putting into the shade its hostile policy, and totally rejected it,” the ministry said.

“This deprived the DPRK of any justification to participate in the six-party talks,” it said.

The United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia have held three rounds of talks with North Korea since August 2003 and have been trying to coax Pyongyang back to the negotiations.

The nuclear standoff erupted in October 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of operating a program based on highly enriched uranium, violating a 1994 arms control agreement. Pyongyang denied that charge but restarted a plutonium program.

Energy-starved North Korea has already said it needed to re-start nuclear activities to make up for a shortfall in energy supplies after a Washington-led coalition cut off fuel shipments late last year.

The shipments were suspended after Washington said in October that Pyongyang admitted running a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement.

Under the agreement, the United States provided fuel aid while North Korea halted its nuclear program.

After the fuel shipments were suspended, North Korea resumed activity at Yongbyon, a long-mothballed facility capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

North Korea has withdrawn from the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT).