North Korea Threatens To Quit Talks, Produce Plutonium

North Korea Threatens To Quit Talks, Produce Plutonium

(NSI News Source Info) SEOUL - April 14, 2009: North Korea threatened today to withdraw from the stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, saying it would soon return to making arms-grade plutonium at its weapons facilities.

North Korea's State-run media criticize a U.N. Security Council call for continuing sanctions against the communist nation in response to its rocket launch this month.

A South Korean man stands next to illustrations of North Korean missiles at an observation post in Paju near the border village of Panmunjom, South Korea, Tuesday, April 14, 2009. North Korea vowed Tuesday to bolster its atomic deterrent and boycott six-party talks aimed at its denuclearization in protest of a U.N. Security Council statement condemning the country's recent rocket launch.

The announcement came in response to international outrage following an April 5 rocket launch that many observers said was a ruse to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile. North Korea has insisted that it launched a communications satellite into space, though neighboring countries say no object reached orbit. The state-run media released a statement criticizing the United Nations Security Council's Monday rebuke of the launch that called for continuing sanctions against the isolationist nation. "The DPRK resolutely rejects the unjust action taken by the [United Nations] wantonly infringing upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and seriously hurting the dignity of the Korean people," said the announcement by the government-controlled Korean Central News Agency, using the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Quoting a statement from the Foreign Ministry, the news agency said North Korea "will never participate in the talks any longer nor it will be bound to any agreement of the six-party talks."

South Korean officials said today that they would not overact to the North's proclamation.

North Korea's response is stronger than expected, considering such strong words as 'never' were used," a South Korean Foreign Ministry official told Yonhap news service. "The government will deal with North Korea's threats in a calm manner." Northeast Asia security analysts reacted with dismay to the development, which comes after months of international pressure failed to dissuade Pyongyang from the launch. "Isn't this what the United States expected?" asked Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korean studies expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, saying the U.S. had called for sanctions against Pyongyang."North Korea had said that six-party talks would break up when the issue of the rocket launch is brought up on the table in the United Nations."U.S. Embassy officials in Seoul declined to comment today.