N.Korea to build more nuclear bombs after UN vote

Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 7:23 AM Posted by Beijing News


A defiant North Korea vowed on Saturday to build more nuclear bombs and to start enriching uranium for a new atomic weapons programme after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions for its nuclear test.

The North, describing Friday's sanctions resolution as a "vile product" of a US-inspired campaign, said it would never abandon nuclear weapons and would treat any attempt to blockade it as an act of war.

The 15-member Council voted unanimously Friday to slap tougher sanctions on the North to cripple its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

The hardline communist state, in a foreign ministry statement reported by its official news agency, said all new plutonium it extracts would be weaponised.

One third of used fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor have so far been reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium, it said.

"Secondly, we will start uranium enrichment," it said in its first admission that it has such a programme -- a second route to a nuclear bomb.

In 2002, the North denied US claims that it was operating a secret uranium enrichment programme in addition to its admitted plutonium-based operation.

The plutonium-producing plants were shut down under a 2007 six-nation disarmament deal. But Pyongyang vowed to restart them after the Security Council in April condemned its long-range rocket launch.

"It has become an absolutely impossible option for the DPRK North Korea to even think about giving up its nuclear weapons," the statement said, adding that any attempted blockade would be considered an act of war "and met with a decisive military response."

It added: "No matter how hard the US-led hostile forces may try all sorts of isolation and blockade, the DPRK, a proud nuclear power, will not flinch from them."

Resolution 1874 passed Friday, which does not authorise the use of force, calls on UN member states to expand sanctions imposed after the North's initial nuclear test in October 2006.

It calls for tougher inspections of cargo suspected of containing banned missile- and nuclear-related items, a tighter arms embargo and new targeted financial curbs to choke off revenue for the nuclear and missile sectors.

It also "demands that the DPRK not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology" and abandon all nuclear weapons and programmes "in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner."

US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said it would be no surprise if North Korea "reacted to this very tough sanctions regime in a fashion that would be further provocation."

US intelligence officials believe it will respond with a third atomic test, according to sources quoted by American TV networks.

Pyongyang followed up its May 25 nuclear test by launching short-range missiles, renouncing the armistice on the Korean peninsula and threatening possible attacks on South Korea.

Seoul has sent some 600 Marine reinforcements to two border islands.

"Under no circumstances should there be the use of force or the threat of use of force," he said.





Schalit

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