US 'concerned' over N Korea

North Korea says diplomacy over its nuclear programme has failed

The United States has said North Korea's claim to have reprocessed thousands of nuclear fuel rods is a matter of "serious concern".

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the US could not verify the North Korean foreign ministry claim that Pyongyang had reprocessed enough fuel rods to make up to six nuclear bombs.

Mr Powell said the US would continue to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

A senior North Korean official also said that the communist state was in possession of a nuclear deterrent and was continuing to strengthen it.

Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon told the Chinese news agency Xinhua in New York that Pyongyang had no choice because the United States had threatened it with nuclear weapons.

It is the first time Pyongyang has made such an explicit claim in public. It has not been independently confirmed.

US 'will not react'

Mr Powell said North Korea had made the same claim twice before and the US would "not react to each and every one of their statements, which seems to be a repeat of the previous statement".

As part of it, North Korea successfully finished the reprocessing of some 8,000 spent fuel rods N Korean foreign ministry Full N Korean statement

He said the US would continue to work with South Korea, Japan and China to try to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

A South Korean foreign ministry official said Pyongyang's remarks seemed to be aimed "at increasing North Korea's negotiating power" in the continuing stand-off with the United States and its allies.

On Wednesday, South Korea and the US said they expected follow-up talks to inconclusive discussions held with the North in August, although Pyongyang says it has not agreed to hold a second round.

'New purpose'

A statement by North Korea's official KCNA news agency said the fuel rods had been reprocessed as part of the reactivation of its nuclear facilities for "peaceful purposes".

But, it added, that since relations with the US deteriorated, it had "changed the purpose" of the rods.

North Korea "made a switchover in the use of plutonium churned out by reprocessing spent fuel rods in the direction [of] increasing its nuclear deterrent force", the statement said.

It added that even more reprocessed spent fuel rods would be "churned out in an unbroken chain... without delay when we deem it necessary".

But Deputy Foreign Minister Choe told Xinhua that Pyongyang had no intention of transferring nuclear weapons technology to other countries.

Reprocessing the spent fuel rods would allow North Korea to separate plutonium from them and make nuclear weapons relatively quickly.

American intelligence has long estimated that North Korea has one or two atom bombs.