North Korea said on Monday it would bolster its nuclear weaponry with an unspecified new method in response to what it called US hostility and recent developments.
“The recent disturbing development on the Korean peninsula underscores the need for the DPRK (North Korea) to bolster its nuclear deterrent in a newly developed way to cope with the US persistent hostile policy toward the DPRK and military threat toward it,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The spokesman, quoted by the official news agency, did not elaborate.
North Korea announced on May 12 it had conducted a nuclear fusion reaction, a process that can be used in making a hydrogen bomb. It did not link the allegedly successful experiment to its atomic weapons programme.
South Korean officials said they had detected an abnormally high level of xenon gas — a byproduct of atomic tests — on May 14, but added there was no evidence a test had been carried out.
In September 2009 the Communist state announced it had reached the final stage of enriching uranium, a second way of making nuclear bombs in addition to the North’s original plutonium-based operation.
The North has reacted angrily to South Korea’s moves to censure it at the United Nations for the sinking of one of Seoul’s warships in March. It has denied responsibility and threatened a military response to any UN action.
Monday’s statement followed the disclosure last week that the United States studied a plan for tactical nuclear strikes on North Korea in 1969, as one possible option in response to the downing of a US spy aircraft. The disclosure showed that the US “has always watched for a chance to use nuclear weapons” against the North, the ministry spokesman said.
“Historical facts prove that the DPRK was quite right when it made a decision to react to nukes with a nuclear deterrent.”
The hardline Communist state has carried out two atomic weapons tests, in 2006 and 2009. It is thought to have enough plutonium to make around six nuclear weapons, but it is unclear whether it has the means of delivering them.
In a separate statement, the North’s military accused the United States on Monday of bringing what it called heavy weapons into the border truce village of Panmunjom.