NKorea vows to bolster nuclear weaponry

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Afghan policemen and officials stand next to the wreckage of a car used in a suicide attack in front of the building from which insurgents launched an attack, in Kabul Monday

SEOUL, June 28 (Agencies): North Korea vowed Monday it would strengthen its nuclear capability to counter what it labeled US hostility as international pressure mounted on Pyongyang over the sinking of a South Korean warship.
The North's military also accused the U.S. and South Korea of gathering heavy weapons to the Korean border village of Panmunjom and warned of taking up retaliatory action unless they are removed.
An international probe found that North Korea torpedoed the warship Cheonan near the tense Korean sea border-an allegation Pyongyang denies. Some 46 South Korean sailors died in the sinking.
South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are pushing for the United Nations Security Council to recognise North Korea's involvment in the deadly ship sinking.
But North Korea said the recent developments underscore the need for stepping up its nuclear deterrent "in a newly developed way" to cope with persistent US hostility and its military threat.
"The recent disturbing development on the Korean peninsula underscores the need for (North Korea) to bolster its nuclear deterrent in a newly developed way to cope with the U.S. persistent hostile policy toward (the North) and military threat toward it," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, did not elaborate how North Korea would go ahead with its announced plan. But analysts said it was threatening to manufacture bombs based on newer programmes, such as uranium-enrichment or nuclear fusion.
"North Korea is applying pressure on the U.S. by saying it can have additional nuclear capability," said Koh Yu-hwan at Seoul's Dongguk University.
The North's warning came after top world leaders meeting in Toronto at the G-8 summit assailed its nuclear programme.
US President Barack Obama, speaking on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Toronto Sunday, said he held "blunt" talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the issue of North Korea.
While he understood that North Korea and China were neighbours, Obama said: "I think there's a difference between restraint and willful blindness to consistent problems.
The U.S. military said it was checking the North Korean statement. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it cannot confirm the reported weapons introduction.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The United States stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against the North.
The North has carried out two atomic weapons tests, in 2006 and 2009. It is thought to have enough plutonium to make around six nuclear weapons, but it is unclear whether it has the means of delivering them.