North Korea ‘has turned nuclear fuel into weapons’

NORTH KOREA said yesterday it had converted the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons to serve as a deterrent against a possible nuclear strike by the US.

Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula “is snowballing”, vice foreign minister Choe Su Hon blamed the US for intensifying threats to attack the communist nation and destroying the basis for negotiations to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.

But Mr Choe told the UN that North Korea is still ready to dismantle its nuclear programme if Washington abandons its “hostile policy” and is prepared to coexist peacefully.