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North Korea to restart nuclear facilities

Reopening of major facility north of Pyongyang follows weeks of warlike rhetoric towards South Korea and the US.



North Korea will restart all nuclear facilities at its main Yongbyon complex, in the latest move which is likely to escalate tensions further with South Korea and the United States.

North Korea plans to rebuild and restart of its nuclear facilities including its uranium enrichment facility and the 5 MW Yongbyon reactor which it closed in 2007, the state news agency KCNA quoted a spokesman at North Korea's atomic energy agency as saying.

The report said the "readjusting and restarting" of nuclear facilities, including a reactor shut down in 2007, would be used for electricity shortages and military development.

The move was being made in line with a policy of "bolstering the nuclear armed force both in quality and quantity" as well as solving "acute" electricity shortages, the spokesman said.

The facilities were closed in 2007 as part of an international nuclear disarmament deal.

Warlike rhetoric



Spotlight coverage of tension in Northeast Asia




The announcement follows weeks of warlike rhetoric from North Korea, including threats to launch nuclear strikes against the US.

The country has also declared that making nuclear arms and a stronger economy are the nation's top priorities.

Meanwhile, on Monday evening, the US stationed a warship off the Korean penninsula coast to defend against a possible missile strike, signalling the latest in a series of publicised US deployments to counter North Korean threats.

The USS Fitzgerald, a 505-feet long Navy-guided missile destroyer, was moved to the southwestern coast on after taking part in annual military exercises, instead of returning to its home port in Japan, a US defence official told AFP Monday on condition of anonymity.

The deployment came hours after a gathering of North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament adopted a law formalising the country's status as a nuclear weapons state.

Heightened tensions

Since North Korea launched a long-range rocket in December and followed it with a nuclear test in February, tensions have risen.

Subsequent UN sanctions and annual South Korea-US military exercises have been used by Pyongyang to justify a wave of increasingly dire threats against Seoul and Washington, including warnings of missile strikes and nuclear war.

In this light, the shifting of the USS Fitzgerald was "a prudent move", the US defence official said, adding that it would offer "greater missile defense options should that become necessary".

Earlier, South Korea's new president, Park Geun-Hye, told senior military officials that any provocation from the North should be met with a "strong and immediate" military response, no matter what the political fallout.

The high-stakes standoff on the Korean peninsula has triggered widespread international concern of an accidental conflict that could escalate rapidly.

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