After years of failed foreign policy
that pampered N.Korea
They finally did it
All that dialouge paying off. KGS
SEOUL (al-Reuters) – North Korea said on Friday that it was in the final stage of enriching uranium, a process that would give it a second path to making a nuclear weapon.
After a series of conciliatory gestures by the North over the past month, the announcement raises the stakes in efforts by the international community to convince the reclusive state to give up its nuclear weapons programme.
“Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase,” the KCNA news agency quoted North Korea’s United Nations delegation as saying in a letter to the head of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC).
The North has already tested two plutonium-based nuclear devices, the one in May triggering tightened international sanctions.
The Unites States has long suspected that the North has a secret programme to enrich uranium for weapons. Experts have said it has not developed anything near a full scale enrichment programme.
The North said its latest moves were in response to tighter sanctions.
“We are prepared for both dialogue and sanctions. If some permanent members of the UNSC wish to put sanctions first before dialogue, we would respond with bolstering our nuclear deterrence first before we meet them in a dialogue.”
