Home>News Center>World
         
 

N.Korea has nuclear bombs, building more
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-09 09:08

North Korea has a stockpile of nuclear bombs and is building more such weapons, the country's vice foreign minister Kim Gye Gwan said in a US television interview.

"I should say that we have enough nuclear bombs to defend against a US attack," the North Korean official told ABC News when asked how many nuclear bombs it possessed.

Asked whether Pyongyang was building more nuclear bombs, Kim said: "Yes."

His open admission about North Korea's nuclear weapon ambitions further clouds efforts to bring a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear crisis gripping the Korean peninsula.

Washington believes North Korea possesses one or two crude bombs and may have reprocessed enough plutonium for half-a-dozen more, from spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

North Korea also has an arsenal of missiles. It fired a long-range missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean in 1998.

Kim, North Korea's chief negotiator in six-party talks designed to wean the hardline communist state from its nuclear weapons program, would neither confirm or deny that North Korea had a missile capable of hitting the mainland United States.

He was also noncommital when asked about North Korea's ability to put a nuclear warhead on its long-range missiles.

"I want you to know that our scientists have the knowledge, comparable to other scientists around the world," he said. "You can take it as you like."

But Kim stressed that North Korea "don't have any intention at all of attacking the US."

The State Department had no comment about the report.

US President George W. Bush said in an interview with Fox News Wednesday that international sanctions against North Korea remained an option.

"North Korea must understand ... that the United States is serious about working with four other countries to convince them to get rid of their weapons systems," he said.

Pyongyang has boasted publicly in the past of possessing a nuclear deterrent and has vowed never to dismantle its atomic arsenal unless the United States drops its "hostile" policy.

In February, it declared that it had developed nuclear weapons to protect itself against a US attack and would indefinitely boycott multilateral talks aimed at dismantling its atomic programs.

North Korea had attended three round of six-party talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia but refused to attend the fourth round scheduled in September last year, citing what it termed hostile US policy.

The official Korean Central News Agency, Pyongyang's mouthpiece, said Wednesday that new talks would take place only when the United States agrees to its demands.

"As for the resumption of the six-party talks, it entirely depends on the US response to the DPRK's (North Korea's) call for creating conditions and an environment for their resumption," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying.

The statement, which followed a rare meeting between US and North Korean officials in New York on Monday, punctured hopes raised by China for an early resumption of talks.

Beijing's ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, had indicated that North Korea had decided to attend a new round of talks soon, possibly within "the next few weeks".

Pyongyang's latest verbal attack came just days after senior US and North Korean diplomats met Monday for the second time in less than a month in New York.

The US State Department said North Korea had said at the meeting that it would return to the talks, although no date was mentioned.

But the Pyongyang foreign ministry spokesman on Wednesday complained of receiving mixed signals from Washington.



 
  Today's Top News     Top World News
 

Bush claims good enough relationship with China

 

   
 

Bird flu outbreak confirmed in Xinjiang

 

   
 

Flood death toll hits 96; relief fund floods in

 

   
 

Bush: US opposed to Taiwan 'independence'

 

   
 

Textile issue a 'yardstick' for free trade

 

   
 

Market sees biggest single day rise in 3 years

 

   
  N.Korea has nuclear bombs, building more
   
  Veto dropped in draft for new UN Council members
   
  Bush claims good enough relationship with China
   
  Iraq leader lauds Shiite, Kurdish militia
   
  Bush open to possibly closing Gitmo Camp
   
  Abbas in Gaza to reinforce shaky truce
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
N. Korea nuclear talks may resume in weeks
   
US, North Korean officials meet in New York
   
North Korean, US officials spoke by phone
   
Rumsfeld: North Korean nuclear proliferation a threat to world
  News Talk  
  Are the Republicans exploiting the memory of 9/11?  
Advertisement