- TOKYO -- The US government
has warned Japan that North Korea has positioned 200 medium-range Rodong
missiles to target Japan, a report said on Sunday, quoting a foreign ministry
official here.
-
- Washington had earlier told Tokyo that Pyongyang already
possessed small nuclear warheads that could be mounted in ballistic missiles,
the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
-
- The Rodong has an estimated range of 1,300 kilometres
(800 miles), which makes it capable of hitting anywhere in Japan.
-
- South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday that
North Korea had told the United States it had completed reprocessing spent
fuel rods to extract plutonium for nuclear weapons.
-
- Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said
on Sunday it was unclear whether North Korea's claim that it has completed
the reprocessing of spent fuel rods to extract plutonium for nuclear weapon
was true.
-
- Asked about South Korean press reports that UN-based
North Korean envoys told US officials last week in New York that the reprocessing
operation was completed on June 30, Rumsfeld told NBC: "They have
told us they have nuclear weapons, they have also made assertions with
respect to the pace at which they're reprocessing."
-
- "Some people believe what they are saying, other
people don't believe what they are saying," the defence secretary
added.
-
- Rumsfeld reiterated that President George W. Bush's administration
had been working with Japan, South Korea, China and Russia and "demonstrated
deep concern about the fact that the North Korean nuclear program is progressing."
-
- Earlier Sunday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted
Chang Sung-Min, a former South Korean ruling party lawmaker, as saying
the informal meeting in New York was attended by North Korea's UN Representative
Park Gil-Yon and US State Department official Jack Pritchard.
-
- Chang reportedly said North Korean envoys disclosed Pyongyang's
plan to extract more plutonium from a five-megawatt reactor and to resume
the construction of new reactors at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.
-
- Earlier on Sunday, a South Korean news agency reported
that North Korea had reprocessed all 8,000 spent fuel rods stored at its
Yongbyong nuclear complex, giving the communist state the means to make
more atomic weapons.
-
- According to the Yonhap agency, Chang Sung-min, a top
intelligence aide to former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, said UN-based
North Korean diplomats had told US officials that the operation had just
been completed.
-
- North Korea's alleged nuclear threat will be top of the
agenda during Australian Prime Minister John Howard's week-long trip to
Japan, the Philippines and South Korea, which began on Sunday.
-
-
|
