N Korea threatens more tests
11/10/2006 12:17  - (SA)  

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Seoul - North Korea's number two leader threatened more nuclear tests if the United States continued its "hostile attitude" against the communist regime, a news report said on Wednesday, amid mounting tensions in Northeast Asia.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, meanwhile, chastised the North's claimed need for a nuclear deterrent against foreign attack in rare direct criticism of his neighbour.

In Pyongyang, Kim Yong Nam, second to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, also suggested his country was ready to return to stalled six-party talks if sanctions against his country were lifted, Japan's Kyodo News agency reported from Pyongyang.

North Korea's latest remarks came after the country shocked the world on Monday by claiming to have conducted its first nuclear bomb test, triggering a US-backed campaign to have the UN security council sanction the country.

US policy

Kim, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, said in an interview with Kyodo that Pyongyang's next steps would hinge on US policy toward it.

"The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy toward our country," Kim was quoted as saying when asked whether Pyongyang will conduct more nuclear tests.

"If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms, we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that," he said.

South Korea readying for nuclear conflict

Tensions heated up throughout Northeast Asia on Wednesday, with South Korea's military reportedly readying for nuclear conflict and North Korea warning that an international push for tighter sanctions would be an act of war.

A North Korean official said that the isolated, impoverished nation would regard full-scale sanctions against it as a call to war, Yonhap news agency reported.

Meanwhile, South Korea's military was checking its readiness for nuclear war, Yonhap said. The joint chiefs of staff reported to defence minister Yoon Kwang-ung on the need for verifying and improving troops' capabilities.

The joint chiefs raised the need for introducing state-of-the-art weapons capable of destroying the means of delivering nuclear weapons, the report said.

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