North Korean threats

North Korea has reacted angrily to a United Nations Security Council decision to widen sanctions against it. The official KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that the North would restart its uranium enrichment program and weaponize all of its plutonium in response to the UN punishment for an April nuclear test.

The spokesman added that the North had "reprocessed more than one-third of our spent nuclear fuel rods".

Pyongyang also threatened military action if the United States and its allies tried to isolate it.

On Friday, the Security Council approved a resolution banning all weapons exports from North Korea and most arms imports into the state. It authorized UN member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo, requiring them to seize and destroy goods shipped that violate the sanctions.

Experts said the North does not have the technology or the resources to build one of the costly reactors but may use the program as cover to enrich uranium for weapons.

North Korea's Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant was being taken apart under a now-stalled disarmament-for-aid deal among Pyongyang and five regional powers. The spent fuel rods cooling at Yongbyon can produce up to one more bomb's worth of fissile material, according to some experts.

The April rocket launch by Pyongyang was widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test.

For years, North Korean officials under the leadership of Kim Jong Il have used military threats to squeeze concessions out of regional powers willing to pay Pyongyang for taking steps to decrease security threats and regional risks.

rb/mrm/Reuters/AP/AFP
Editor: Andreas Illmer