North Korea Issues Nuclear Warning

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

(09:36 GMT) (10:36 UK)

The BBC

Pyongyang has responded angrily to plans by a US-led initiative, announced this week, to step up international checks on North Korean ships. And last week, officials from the US, South Korea and Japan met in Hawaii to co-ordinate policy on the North's nuclear threat.

BBC
North Korea has warned it will strengthen its nuclear deterrents in response to growing pressure from the United States.

The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry, carried by KCNA news agency, also warned of retaliation in the event of any "hostile act".

State media earlier on Wednesday said the regime would never abandon its nuclear weapons programme without concessions from Washington.

The statements came as the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, urged South East Asian ministers at a regional security forum in Cambodia to exert more pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

"This is not a bilateral matter between the United States and North Korea," Mr Powell told the Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) Regional Forum, according to the French news agency AFP.

"It affects every nation in the region that would fall under the arc of a North Korean missile.

"Thus it must be solved as a multilateral problem," he said.
(More: BBC Online)
2003 © The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Dan