N Korea restarts nuclear programme

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SEOUL, April 25 (AFP): North Korea said Saturday it has started reprocessing spent fuel rods to make weapons-grade plutonium, in an apparent response to international punishment against its controversial rocket launch.
The statement came hours after the United Nations slapped sanctions on three North Korean firms accused of backing missile development, in its first concrete action against Pyongyang over the April 5 rocket launch.
"The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the foreign ministry statement dated April 14," a foreign ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency.
"This will contribute to bolstering the nuclear deterrence for self-defence in every way to cope with the increasing military threats from the hostile forces."
North Korea on April 14 announced it would quit six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and restart its atomic weapons programme in protest at the UN's statement condemning the launch.
Pyongyang says it put a satellite into orbit but the United States and its allies say it conducted a disguised long-range ballistic missile test.
The North had been disabling parts of the Yongbyon nuclear complex as agreed under a February 2007 six-nation deal involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.
But six-party negotiations stalled last December because of disputes about ways to verify its declared nuclear activities.
Analysts say it will take three to four months before the North completes reprocessing some 8,000 spent fuel rods from the reactor in Yongbyon to obtain plutonium.
"It will then have produced some six to eight kilograms (13-18 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium, which can be used to produce one or two bombs," Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told newsmen.
If all has been turned into weapons, the North might have six to eight bombs, experts say.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan told journalists Wednesday sanctions would be more tightly applied to the North if it starts reprocessing the spent fuel.
Pak Tok-Hun, North Korea's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, denounced the new measures as a "wanton violation" of the United Nations charter.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meeting with President Lee Myung-Bak in Seoul Saturday after a visit to Pyongyang, reaffirmed Moscow's stance against sanctions.
"North Korea is now like a fortress under siege. Other countries must not react too emotionally (to the rocket launch)," Lavrov was quoted as telling Lee by a South Korean official.
North Korea's Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun arrived in Beijing Saturday to hold talks with Chinese officials on his way to Cuba, where he will attend an international meeting of non-aligned countries, Yonhap news agency said.
The North says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself from US military threats.
The country, marking the anniversary of its military Saturday, announced it would deal a "merciless strike" against the US and its allies should they try to invade.
Reuters adds: A Security Council committee Friday placed three North Korean companies on a UN blacklist for aiding Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programmes, eliciting a sharp rebuke from a North Korean envoy.
The North Korea sanctions committee met a Friday deadline set by the Security Council on April 13 to produce a list of goods and North Korean entities to be blacklisted under Security Council resolution 1718, passed after Pyongyang's October 2006 nuclear test.
The three companies put on the list are Korea Mining Development Trading Corp, Korea Ryongbong General Corp and Tranchon Commercial Bank, according to a copy of the committee's decision obtained by the news agency.
The decision said the three companies were linked to the military and active in procuring equipment and financing for North Korea's ballistic missile and other weapons programmes.
The blacklisting prohibits companies and nations around the world from doing business with the three firms, but the impact of the action might be largely symbolic.
One Western diplomat said the three blacklisted firms had subsidiaries that also would be subject to UN sanctions.
Committee members also decided to ban the import and export of items on an internationally recognised list of sensitive technologies used to build long-range missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction.