Fears over North Korea nuke plans

RENEWING fears of a nuclear crisis in the region, North Korea yesterday said it will immediately reactivate a frozen nuclear programme the United States suspects was being used to develop weapons.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said his country would revive an old, Soviet-designed nuclear reactor and resume construction of other nuclear facilities to supply desperately needed power.

The programme was suspended under a 1994 deal with the US, averting a possible war on the Korean Peninsula. Experts say North Korea could quickly extract enough plutonium from its old facilities to make several nuclear weapons.