North Korean nuclear arms claims ‘exaggerated’

SOUTH KOREAN President Roh Moo-Hyun said yesterday that claims that North Korea is close to developing a nuclear weapon are “exaggerated,” and that trilateral talks are the best way to address Pyongyang’s demands for security guarantees from the US.

“Both of our governments (Washington and Seoul) think that North Korea’s claims are exaggerated, specifically, the argument that it has already completed reprocessing of plutonium, and that it is very close to developing a nuclear weapon,” he said in an interview with the ABC television network on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.

North Korea, which US intelligence believes to have one or two nuclear bombs, claims it has finished processing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, enough to make about six nuclear devices.