N. Korea says it will restart its nuclear reactor

[April 14, 2009]  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea vowed Tuesday to restart its nuclear reactor and to boycott international disarmament talks for good in retaliation for the U.N. Security Council's condemnation of its rocket launch.

North Korea's swift denunciation of the council's "hostile" move came hours after all 15 members unanimously agreed to condemn the April 5 launch as a violation of U.N. resolutions and to tighten sanctions against the regime.

The U.N. statement, issued eight days after the launch, was weaker than the resolution Japan and the United States had pursued but still drew an angry response from Pyongyang, which called it "unjust" and a violation of international law.

North Korea claims it sent a communications satellite into space as part of a peaceful bid to develop its space program.

The U.S. and others call the launch an illicit test of the technology used to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, even one eventually destined for the U.S.

A Security Council resolution passed in 2006, days after North Korea carried out an underground nuclear test, prohibits Pyongyang from engaging in any ballistic missile-related activity -- including launching rockets that use the same delivery technology as missiles mounted with warheads, Washington and other nations say.

The council on Monday demanded an end to the rocket launches and said it will expand sanctions against the communist nation. The council also called for quick resumption of disarmament talks.

President Barack Obama called the statement a "clear and united message" that North Korea's action was unlawful and would result in real consequences, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

North Korea, following through on earlier threats to withdraw from international disarmament talks if the council so much as criticized the launch, announced Tuesday it would boycott the 5 1/2-year-old negotiations hosted by China.

"The six-party talks have lost the meaning of their existence, never to recover," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, declaring it would never participate in the talks again and is no longer bound to previous agreements.

Since 2003, envoys from six nations -- the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan -- have been meeting in Beijing for sporadic negotiations on getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program in exchange for aid and other concessions.

Under a 2007 six-party deal, North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon north of Pyongyang -- a key step toward dismantlement -- in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. Disablement began later that year.

In June 2008, North Korea famously blew up the cooling tower at Yongbyon in a dramatic show of its commitment to denuclearization.

But disablement came to halt a month later as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its 18,000-page account of past atomic activities. The latest round of talks, in December, failed to push the process forward.

On Tuesday, the North said it would restart nuclear facilities, an apparent reference to the five-megawatt plutonium-producing reactor and other facilities at Yongbyon. North Korea already is believed to have enough plutonium to produce at least about half a dozen atomic bombs.

It also threatened to gird against what it called "hostile acts" by the U.S. and its allies.

"We have no choice but to further strengthen our nuclear deterrent to cope with additional military threats by hostile forces," the Foreign Ministry said in the statement carried by state media.

Analyst Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, called Pyongyang's move yet another tactic in the regime's bid to get Washington to the negotiating table outside the six-party framework. He said North Korea will watch to see how the U.S. reacts.

Another analyst, Prof. Yoo Ho-yeol of Korea University in Seoul, called North Korea's move "strong action" against the U.S. that betrays how upset the regime is by the Security Council statement.

But he said Pyongyang will find it difficult to boycott the talks entirely, since that would only serve to further isolate the impoverished country, one of the world's poorest.

China, the North's main ally, called for calm.

"We hope the relevant parties will proceed from the overall interest, exercise calmness and restraint," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said North Korea's decision "prompts regret."

South Korea's Foreign Ministry earlier welcomed the U.N. condemnation and urged North Korea to respond to international calls for the peaceful, diplomatic resolution of tensions over its nuclear program.

[Associated Press; By HYUNG-JIN KIM]

Associated Press writers Kelly Olsen and Kwang-tae Kim in Seoul, Christopher Bodeen and Gillian Wong in Beijing, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, contributed to this report.

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