North Korea said yesterday it was working on restarting its nuclear plant and dismissed the prospect of being removed from a US terrorism blacklist in return for a disarmament deal.
The North said it had begun work to rebuild the Soviet-era nuclear Yongbyon plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium that was being taken apart under a much-delayed disarmament-for-aid deal it reached with five regional powers, including Washington.
"The DPRK (North Korea) neither wishes to be delisted as a 'state sponsor of terrorism' nor expects such a thing to happen," the North's official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
Last month, North Korea said it planned to restart Yongbyon because it was angry at Washington for not taking it off its terrorism blacklist. In early September, it made minor but initial moves to restart the plant, US officials said.
Washington has said it will remove Pyongyang from the list once the state allows inspectors to verify claims it made about its nuclear arms production. Once removed, the North can better tap into international finance and expand its meagre trade.
Analysts have said the North might be trying to pressure the outgoing Bush administration as it looks for diplomatic successes to bolster its legacy. The North might also be thinking it can wait for a new US President to try to get a better deal.
A South Korean official familiar with the talks said what lies ahead may be drawn-out negotiations but it did not mean Pyongyang was about to quit the deal for good.
"I believe there is continued interest (by the North) in the overall six-way process," the official said on the condition of anonymity.
The South Korean official said the North knows aid and disablement are linked. Energy-starved North Korea has been receiving partial shipments over the past several months of one million tonnes of heavy fuel oil for previous progress it has made under the deal.
North Korea, which exploded a nuclear device about two years ago, began to disable Yongbyon in early November as called for in the deal it struck with China, the US, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
The disablement - mostly completed except for a few key steps that involve both spent and unused nuclear fuel rods - were aimed at putting Yongbyon out of the plutonium production business for at least a year.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said in early September that North Korea informed regional powers and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had started work to restore its aging nuclear plant.
Yesterday, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by its KCNA news agency: "... work has been under way to restore its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon to their original state".
Proliferation experts have said that trade sanctions placed on North Korea make it difficult for it to acquire the parts it needs to restart Yongbyon, where some of the facilities might be beyond repair because of their age.
Yesterday's announcement came after US and South Korean officials said last week that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may have suffered a stroke, which raised questions about succession in Asia's only communist dynasty and who controls its nuclear arsenal.
A finger-wagging North Korean nuclear negotiator dismissed as malicious gossip the reports about Mr Kim.
"It is sophism by bad people who wish ill for our country," North Korean Foreign Ministry official Hyon Hak-bong said ahead of talks with South Koreans at the Panmunjom truce village that straddles the border, according to a pool report.