North Korea ‘has enough plutonium for six nuclear bombs’

NORTH KOREA may have enough weapons-grade plutonium to make up to half a dozen nuclear bombs, the head of the UN atomic watchdog agency said yesterday in another warning about the reclusive regime’s secretive nuclear programme.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El Baradei told CNN that Pyongyang has the nuclear infrastructure to convert the material into atomic weapons.

“We knew they had the plutonium that could be converted into five or six North Korea weapons,” Mr El Baradei said.

Recent satellite imagery suggests North Korea may be preparing to test a weapon underground, and the IAEA has been urging the international community to increase pressure on Pyongyang to refrain from any such test.

IAEA inspectors were expelled from North Korea in 2002, and the agency has stressed that there is no way to know for sure whether the country is close to producing a nuclear weapon or is getting ready to test one.

“North Korea, I think, has been seeking a dialogue with the US, with the rest of the international community... through their usual policy of nuclear blackmail, nuclear brinkmanship, to force the other parties to engage them,” he added.