North Korea vows to bolster "war deterrent"
Posted: 25 August 2008 0842 hrs

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SEOUL: North Korea vowed Sunday it would bolster its "war deterrent" as it denounced last week's annual US-South Korean joint military exercise.

The communist North, which tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, was reacting to the August 18-22 exercise involving computer simulations and tens of thousands of US and South Korean troops.

"The DPRK (North Korea) will bolster the war deterrent for self-defence... and resolutely foil any provocation with strong countermeasures," the communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said.

The newspaper commentary, similar in tone to many of Pyongyang's past threats, came as a snag has hit six-party negotiations on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes.

The talks involve China, both Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.

North Korea last year agreed to abandon its atomic programmes in return for energy aid and diplomatic and security guarantees.

It is disabling its main plutonium-producing nuclear complex ahead of the final phase of the agreement, in which it should dismantle the plants and hand over all nuclear weapons and atomic material.

But the US and North Korea cannot agree on ways to verify a nuclear declaration which the North submitted in June as part of the six-nation deal.

Both sides held talks in New York on Friday to break a deadlock over measures to verify Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme that could pave the way for removing the hardline communist state from a terrorism blacklist.

The US refuses to remove the North from the list until the verification issue is resolved.

It reportedly wants full access by outside inspectors to cover not just North Korea's admitted plutonium programme but also its alleged secret uranium enrichment programme and proliferation activities.

Last week, the North accused the US of not honouring its side of the deal.

Under legal procedures, the earliest Washington could have removed North Korea from the terrorism list was August 11.

The two Koreas are technically still at war since a 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armistice.

- AFP/yb