North Korea confirms plans for nuclear arsenal
North Korea has announced that it wants to produce nuclear weapons in order to cut its huge army and boost its critically flagging economy.
It is Pyongyang’s most explicit announcement to date that it is planning to build a nuclear arsenal.
Communist North Korea currently has one of the largest armies in the world, with 1.1 million troops.
The state’s official KCNA news agency said that if the United States did not back away from its hostile stance, North Korea would have no option but to create a nuclear deterrent.
It stressed that this was not to ‘blackmail’ other countries but was about cutting military costs and improving the lives of its people. Pyongyang insisted again that it had a right to create a nuclear programme.
The US claims that North Korea processed enough plutonium for one or two atomic bombs during a nuclear programme that was frozen in 1994. The country recently restarted a research reactor and stated during talks with China and America that it had already produced nuclear weapons.
Washington is hoping for a peaceful resolution to the problem but has not ruled out a strike against the country in the near future.
The US withdrew aid to North Korea after the country revealed it was intent on developing nuclear arms. North Korea responded by withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The North Korean economy is reportedly close to collapse and the government is desperate to cut spending before it reaches crisis point.
Many of the state’s citizens are malnourished and the scale of the problems is unclear because of North Korea’s insular nature.
Japan and South Korea’s leaders – Junichiro Koizumi and Roh Moo-hyun – discussed the issue of North Korea during talks over the weekend and are looking for further multilateral talks with the US.
