N. Korea says it completed reprocessing spent fuel rods

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Tuesday it has completed reprocessing spent fuel rods and made ""noticeable successes"" in weaponizing plutonium extracted from them in an apparent call for the United States to quickly start bilateral talks.

The announcement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, came a day after North Korea warned it would ""go its own way"" if the U.S. remains unresponsive.

North Korea ""successfully completed the reprocessing of 8,000 spent fuel rods by the end of August as part of the measure taken to restore the nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon (Yongbyon) to their original state,"" the report said.

""Noticeable successes have been made in turning the extracted plutonium weapon-grade for the purpose of bolstering up the nuclear deterrent in the DPRK (North Korea),"" it added.

The report did not elaborate what the ""successes"" were.

The Yongbyon complex, some 90km north of Pyongyang, had been mothballed under a six-nation accord. But Pyongyang said in April that it resumed reprocessing the spent fuel rods from the nuclear complex, in protest against a punitive UN resolution for its long-range rocket launch earlier that month.

The South Korean foreign ministry expressed deep regret over the North's announcement, saying it is a violation of its duty to denuclearize as stated in UN Resolutions 1718 and 1874.

""We deeply regret North Korea's repeated activities to defy the international community's concerted demand,"" ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said in a press release.

Moon stressed that South Korea will closely cooperate with other related countries so North Korea may return to the six-party talks on its denuclearization at an early date and fulfill its duties for denuclearization.

Officials in Seoul said earlier that North Korea has apparently restored the reprocessing facility at the Yongbyon complex.

""The reprocessing factory appears to have been restored to its earlier conditions,"" a senior defense official told Yonhap on Monday, citing satellite photos that showed a continuous stream of workers in and out of the site in Yongbyon. Another official said that electricity has been detected being supplied to the complex on and off over the past few months.

On Monday, North Korea's foreign ministry stressed that ""now is the U.S. turn"" as Pyongyang has already expressed its position that bilateral dialogue is a precondition for the resumption of the six-party talks, which also involve South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. Pyongyang quit the multilateral forum in June in protest against UN sanctions imposed on the country for its nuclear test in May.

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