Seoul - North Korea said Tuesday that it has completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to obtain plutonium for nuclear weapons. The work was completed by the end of August at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.
The country "made remarkable achievements in weaponizing the extracted plutonium to strengthen North Korea's nuclear deterrence," the agency said.
Experts said the plutonium would be enough to make one nuclear bomb.
The Stalinist state in April left international talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programme after international criticism of its long-range missile tests. In May, North Korea conducted its second nuclear test.
Undeterred by international protests, North Korea appeared to have fully restored its Yongbyon nuclear facility, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported Monday, citing government officials. The plant, located 100 kilometres north of Pyongyang, is capable of making plutonium for weapons from used fuel rods.
The country dismantled significant parts of its nuclear facilities as part of a February 2007 treaty with the United States, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, but North Korea announced a month ago that it was turning its plutonium stock into new nuclear weapons to increase its arsenal.
The latest developments are a turnaround from a more conciliatory position taken by North Korea in recent weeks when it indicated its willingness to return to multilateral talks, albeit only after engaging in successful bilateral talks with the United States.
On Monday, Pyongyang urged Washington to decide whether it wanted to pursue bilateral talks while warning that North Korea would "go its own way" in the absence of such negotiations.
North Korean observers said its announcement Tuesday was aimed at putting pressure on Washington to quickly convene bilateral talks.
South Korea criticized its neighbour's latest nuclear announcement, calling it a violation of its obligation to rid itself of nuclear weapons as laid out in UN resolutions.
"We deeply regret North Korea's repeated activities to defy the international community's concerted demand," the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said.
