North Korea Says It Has Nuclear Arms, Spurns Talks

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
SEOUL (Reuters) - [size=-1]North Korea (news - web sites) declared Thursday for the first time it possessed nuclear weapons and pulled out indefinitely from six-party talks on its atomic ambitions, saying it needed a defense against a hostile United States[/size]



Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) played down the dramatic announcement, saying the United States had assumed since the mid-1990s that North Korea could make nuclear weapons.



But she said North Korea would only deepen its own isolation, and forego international security guarantees if it pulled out of six-party talks on its nuclear program.



Britain said it deplored the North's announcement, which comes as some of the world's largest military powers have been trying to coax the reclusive communist government to return to the stalled disarmament talks.



"We ... have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.



DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.



"Nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the ministry said.



The statement marks the first time the North has publicly said it has nuclear weapons and is Pyongyang's first response to resuming six-party talks since President Bush (news - web sites) said in his inauguration speech on Jan. 20 that he was committed to ending tyranny.

While Bush did not specify countries in his address last month, Rice has singled out North Korea as one of six tyrannical regimes.
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SO much for non-proliferation talks, eh?
 
North Korea has been playing high stakes sabre rattling poker for 50 years. They fluff up their chest feathers and squawk at the world about stuff they do and do not have and/or intend. I don't think that they have such weapons... unless they managed to bribe some starving east bloc scientists to make it easier for them. I think they lack proper raw materials to get decent uranium. If they do have it... then its weak and low tech... Hiroshimaesque.
 
I was afraid this was going to happen since that large mushroom cloud went off in that NK city not too far back. Of course, you realize they just lost Chinese backing if this is true...
 
China has been slowly distancing themselves from NK since the mid 90s because they were left toting the full load for aid since the Soviets went down in the early 90s. NK was even being unwisely snotty towards China... so the Chinese had quietly decided to drop them cold.
 
The world must show zero tolerance to North Korea and put pressure on it not to launch a nuclear test, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has said.
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Oh Gee. SO, it will be something like this.

Don't do that, or we'll tell you not to do it again.
 
Since we will never launch a military strike to stop them from doing whatever they please and negotiating with them is a dead end, my recommendation is to ignore the little bastards.

If I were the beloved leader I'd sure pop off a coupla underground nukes. What the heck?
Hell if it was me I’d light them puppies off above ground, that would get a rise out of everyone!
 
In the immortal words of the British Bobby....STOP! or I'll say STOP! again.
 
BEIJING - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a visiting Chinese diplomat Wednesday that his country seeks a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. Xinhua also paraphrased Kim as saying he hoped six-party international talks could be an important platform for realizing that goal. A new round of talks — involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan — are expected to begin in Beijing the week of July 25
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China, the North's last major ally, has campaigned hard over the past year to restart the disarmament negotiations. Beijing is believed to supply North Korea with up to one-third of its food and one-quarter of its energy needs.
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Good news.

Source
 
Let's hope it holds. Kim Jung-Il changes his mind every time he urinates. He wants a nuke free peninsula today. Tomorrow, he may want to incinerate the south.

Still, better than yesterday, I suppose.
 
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