US 'regrets' North Korea nuclear threat

Fears are mounting over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions

The United States has condemned North Korea's announcement to reactivate a mothballed nuclear power plant, frozen under a 1994 agreement with the US.

We have to see if the North is actually about to implement this or if it is using it as a negotiation tactic

South Korean official

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer described the move as "regrettable" but said it would not force Washington into dialogue with Pyongyang.

In its announcement, the North Korean foreign ministry said it was responding to a US-led decision to suspend oil aid to Pyongyang as a punishment for a separate, alleged nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea said it was reactivating the plant at Yongbyon to make up for the electricity shortfall caused by the ending of the heavy oil shipments.

The US and its regional allies - South Korea and Japan - are worried that the plant could also be used as part of a wider nuclear weapons programme, which North Korea has regularly stated the "right" to possess.

Click here to see a map of key nuclear sites

Pyongyang's announcement follows the seizure and subsequent release of a ship on Wednesday carrying what US officials said were North Korean missiles bound for Yemen.

Both developments, says the BBC's Rob Watson in Washington, represent a very low point in US - North Korean relations in just one week.

Measured

"The announcement flies in the face of international consensus that the North Korean regime must fulfil all its commitments, in particular dismantle its nuclear weapons program," Mr Fleischer said.

North Korea badly needs foreign aid

He said the United States sought a peaceful resolution to the North Korean dispute, but it would not "bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the agreements North Korea has signed".

"We have no intentions of invading North Korea," Mr Fleischer added, in what our correspondent describes as a measured response.

South Korea and Japan have expressed concern over their neighbour's announcement.

If you read the North Korean announcement carefully, their consistent stance is to seek a peaceful resolution

Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese Prime Minister

South Korea's National Security Council convened in emergency session to express strong regret and grave concern" over the development which "could raise tension on the Korean peninsula".

The BBC's Caroline Gluck, in Seoul, says the government will come under renewed pressure to rethink its "sunshine policy" of engagement and exchanges with the North.

North Korea: Facts and figures

Japan described the threat as "deplorable" - but Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged caution, noting the "consistent stance ... to seek a peaceful resolution".

Brinkmanship?

Pyongyang's move threatens to kill off the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to close down a nuclear reactor suspected of producing weapons-grade plutonium in return for two light-water reactors and US oil supplies.

Fleischer: "We're not invading North Korea"

But the US and its allies decided to halt oil shipments last month after Washington's envoy, James Kelly, reported that Kim Jong-il's secretive regime had admitted to pursuing an alternative, enriched uranium programme.

Korea analyst Aidan Foster-Carter, recalling Pyongyang's frequent brinkmanship, told the BBC: "What they say is one thing, we have to see what they do".

Mr Foster-Carter, senior research fellow in modern Korea at Leeds University, said that proof of action would be the expulsion of two International Atomic Energy Agency monitors who are based at the defunct nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

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	Yongbyon: Site includes a 5-MWe experimental nuclear power reactor and a partially completed plutonium extraction facility. The US believes the reactor and extraction plant have been used to produce plutonium - possibly enough for 1 or 2 nuclear weapons. Activities at site frozen under 1994 Agreed Framework Taechon: 200-MWe nuclear power reactor - construction halted under Agreed Framework Pyongyang: Laboratory-scale "hot cells" that may have been used to extract small quantities of plutonium Kumho: Site of two 1,000-MWe light water reactors under construction by Kedo

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