North Korea Declares It Has Nuclear Weapons

In a development with wide-ranging geopolitical implications - including the prospect of an armed confrontation that could further destabilize the world's oil supply, driving prices far higher - North Korea today declared that it has nuclear weapons aas it abandoned a Pyongang conference on disarmament, The Washington Post reported.

Even as the United States confronts Iran over nuclear weapons technology it believes Iran is developing, the prospect of a heated struggle with North Korea over its nuclear arms was pushed a step closer by the declaration.

The Feb. 10 report from the Associated Press said, in part:

North Korea Admits to Nuclear Weapons, Suspends Talks
by Sang-Hun Choe
Associated Press
Thursday, February 10, 2005; 3:09 AM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea on Thursday announced for the first time that it has nuclear weapons and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks any time soon, saying it needs the armaments as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

The communist state's pronouncement dramatically raised the stakes in the two-year-old nuclear confrontation and posed a grave challenge to President Bush, who started his second term with a vow to end North Korea's nuclear program through six-nation talks.

"We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North)," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Previously, North Korea reportedly told U.S. negotiators in private talks that it had nuclear weapons and might test one of them. Its U.N. envoy told The Associated Press last year that the country had "weaponized" plutonium from its pool of 8,000 nuclear spent fuel rods.

But Thursday's statement was North Korea's first public acknowledgment that it has nuclear weapons. North Korea makes all important statements in the name of its Foreign Ministry spokesman and spreads them through KCNA, the isolated state's main news outlet.

North Korea's "nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the ministry said. "The present reality proves that only powerful strength can protect justice and truth."

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Wednesday denied that the United States is planning any attack on Iran, saying that it has numerous diplomatic avenues it can pursue to resolve the issue. "It's not on the agenda," she told reporters during a European tour yesterday.

Iran, however, has defended its right to conduct enrichment of uranium that could lead to nuclear weapons fuels. In a Reuters story published in The New York Times early Thursday morning, Iranian leaders took a hard stance against U.S. opposition to their nuclear programs:

Iran Says It Will Never Give Up Nuclear Technology
From ReutersPublished: February 10, 2005
Filed at 0:10 a.m. ET

TEHRAN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran, in a renewed challenge to U.S. and European efforts to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear bomb, vowed on Wednesday it would never give up its nuclear program.

President Mohammad Khatami also warned of ``massive'' consequences if it was treated unfairly over its nuclear program which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only and Washington believes is a cover for producing a bomb.

"We give our guarantee that we will not produce nuclear weapons because we're against them and do not believe they are a source of power," Khatami told foreign ambassadors in Tehran.

"But we will not give up peaceful nuclear technology."