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N.Korea Says It Has Nukes, Shuns Talks
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File photo of North Korea's Yongbyon-1 nuclear power plant. (Reuters)
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PYONGYANG,
February 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – North Korea
announced Thursday, February 10, for the first time it possesses
nuclear weapons to protect itself against an increasingly hostile
United States and suspended participation in the six-way talks on
dismantling its nuclear program.
“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
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Bush said “Iran” with a nuclear weapon would be a “very destabilizing” force. (Reuters)
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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).
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