Posted on 02/05/2003 10:10:43 AM PST by Indy Pendance
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said Wednesday it had restarted and put on a "normal footing" the atomic facilities at the center of its suspected nuclear weapons program.
The move raises the stakes in a crisis Pyongyang said the United States had triggered by threatening the isolated communist state.
"The DPRK (North Korea) is now putting the operation of its nuclear facilities for the production of electricity on a normal footing after their restart," said a statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry carried on the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
North Korea's latest defiant move came as international attention was focused Secretary of State Colin Powell address to the U.N. Security Council designed to persuade the council and world opinion that U.N. weapons inspectors cannot disarm Iraq and that war may be the only resort.
The late-night statement was issued five days after U.S. officials said American satellite surveillance had shown North Korea was moving fuel rods around the reactor complex at Yongbyon, including possibly some of the 8,000 spent fuel rods that experts consider a key step in building bombs.
But the U.S. officials added that there was no sign that crucial reprocessing of those spent rods had begun -- a step that would enable North Korea to begin bomb-making in weeks, adding to the arsenal of two bombs the West suspects it has already built.
North Korea's statement did not mention the fuel rods, and repeated North Korea's assertion that it had ended the freeze on its nuclear reactor to produce electricity.
"The DPRK government has already solemnly declared that its nuclear activity would be limited to the peaceful purposes including the production of electricity at the present stage," KCNA quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
MILITARY RESEARCH REACTOR
Impoverished North Korea suffers from crippling power shortages, but nuclear experts reject Pyongyang's electricity argument because the reactor at Yongbyon is a small military research reactor with insignificant power generation capacity.
North Korea rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency's plans to refer the nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council next week because it had already quit the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the spokesman said.
"The DPRK does not care about whether the UN Security Council discusses the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula or not," the ministry spokesman said.
"But if it wants to handle this issue, it should fairly call into question the responsibility of the U.S. which is chiefly to blame for the outbreak of this issue and for the strained situation."
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in Vienna Monday that the agency's board of governors would meet on February 12 and was likely to hand the nuclear crisis over to the U.N. Security Council. He said the council was not expected to recommend sanctions or military action against North Korea.
ElBaradei was in New York Wednesday for Powell's presentation and an IAEA spokeswoman in Vienna had no immediate comment on North Korea's announcement.
The statement said the United States had triggered the nuclear crisis with President Bush's speech last year branding North Korea, Iran and Iraq an "axis of evil" and with American plans calling for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against rogue states.
"If the U.N. Security Council responsible for the issue of world peace and security does not call the U.S. wrong-Korean policy to task, this organization will turn out to be partial and the DPRK will, accordingly, not recognize it," it said.
NORTH SEES "WAR HYSTERIA"
The crisis erupted last October when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to enriching uranium in violation of a 1994 accord, under which it froze its nuclear program in exchange for two energy-generating reactors and free fuel.
Since December, North Korea has expelled IAEA inspectors, withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), restarted a mothballed nuclear complex capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium and threatened to resume missile tests.
North Korea's state media pounced on comments by U.S. officials that Washington had put ships and planes on standby for a precautionary deployment to the western Pacific to deter any aggression or adventurism by Pyongyang during a war in Iraq.
"The war hysteria of the U.S. imperialists, keen to isolate and stifle the DPRK (North Korea) under the pretext of the nuclear issue, has reached a more reckless phase," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Spear Technology Will Knock Out N. Korean Reactors
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/12/30/30344.shtml
If you wanna hang out...WE've gotta take him out, HUSSEIN!!!
If you wanna lay down...Baghdad's yer town, RATbrains!!
Soddom lies, he ain't Right, FReedomFight...Hussein!!
(ConservativeMusician rockin' it a tad...)
If you got RATviews, you needta sing MUD's blues...Be Sane!!
When yer fightin' THUGS, you need the Bigger Gun..."Prevail!!"
Willie lies, Slick's a SPY!! Let's INDICT...RATS' Shame!!
(ConservativeMusician workin' it like only a 20-year vet can...)
Pack yer things...yer gone, boy, you best just ride on, Hussein!!
Don't forget this fact, OUR Target's Yer Back, Hussein!!
Dubyuh's RIGHT...Soddom'sBlight...Right Shall Smite...Hussein!!
Clinton lied...Chi-Com SPY...Slick, WE'll Try...Clinton!!
(ConservativeMusician jammin' 'til fade)
FReegards...MUD
Now the youth of South Korea have posters up of their bribing/appeasing President Kim in an embrace with the North's President Kim, in Pyongyang.
Must be this darn flu. Er, at least I hope it's the flu.
Interesting times, eh?
Say, watch what I post under "Breaking" in about 10-15 minutes (we are translating right now). It will be a real eye opener on FR. You won't see this in our US media.
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