North Korea’s vow to restart all its mothballed nuclear facilities is met with dismay by the United Nations, which urges leaders to end “aggressive” threats and begin talks.
The United Nation‘s Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that the crisis over North Korea had gone too far.
“Nuclear threats are not a game,” he said. “Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counter-actions, and fuel fear and instability.”
Earlier today, North Korea announced the reopening of its nuclear facilities including its shuttered Yongbyon reactor.
China’s Foreign Ministry expressed regret at the move, which will enable North Korea to extract more plutonium to bolster its atomic stockpile for use in chemical weapons.
Mr Ki-Moon said: “Things must calm down, as this situation, made worse by the lack of communication, could lead down a path that nobody should want to follow.”
Offering to help the parties to begin talks, he added: “I am convinced that nobody intends to attack (North Korea) because of disagreements about its political system or foreign policy. However, I am afraid that others will respond firmly to any direct military provocation.”
On Monday, South Korea’s president promised to stirke back quickly “without any political considerations” if the North stages any attack on its territory.
North Korea says the region has entered a “state of war”, as the US deploys radar-evading fighter planes.
Mr Ki-Moon, speaking during an official visit to Andorra, also called on North Korean authorities to abide by resolutions from the UN security council.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un declared at a policy-setting meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party on Sunday that the country would boost nuclear power and develop the economy.
North Korea will rebuild and restart nuclear facilities including a mothballed uranium enrichment facility and a 5 MW reactor, both in Yongbyon, the official news service KCNA quoted a spokesman at its atomic energy agency as saying.
Pyongyang is estimated to have enough fissile material to build up to eight nuclear bombs, although estimates vary.
According to estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security from late 2012, North Korea could have enough weapons grade uranium for 21-32 nuclear weapons by 2016 if it used one centrifuge at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to enrich uranium to weapons-grade.
The General Department of Atomic Energy decided to adjust and alter the uses of the existing nuclear facilities, to begin with, KCNA reported.
It said the nuclear facilities would be used for both electricity and military uses.
It was not clear how long it would take to restart the reactor, whose cooling tower was blown up in a made-for-TV event in 2008 under an agreement to suspend the atomic complex. There have been reports of construction work near where the tower once stood but it was not clear whether the North was rebuilding it.