Pyongyang is responding to U.S. inaction: vice foreign minister

NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (Yonhap) -- A top North Korean diplomat on Saturday defended his country's recent moves to restart a nuclear facility in response to U.S. refusal to remove the communist state from a list of terrorism-sponsoring countries.

Speaking at a U.N. General Assembly session, Pak Gil-yon, vice minister of
foreign affairs, said Pyongyang had no choice but to take "countermeasures" based
on the "action-for-action" principle since the U.S. violated the six-party
nuclear disarmament deal.
Washington has impeded the denuclearization process by raising "unjust" demands
-- such as internationally recognizable outside inspections to verify the
declaration -- without fulfilling its end of the deal, he claimed.
North Korea will not pardon any attempt to damage its dignity or violate its
sovereign rights, the official said.
He didn't specify what the countermeasures would be, but apparently referred to
the North's recent steps to restore its partially disabled plutonium-producing
plant in Yongbyon.
Pyongyang told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday that it
would restart the Yongbyon plant in a week, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. The
North also reportedly removed seals and surveillance equipment from the plant and
barred U.N. inspectors from access to the facility.
Washington promised to take North Korea off the terrorism blacklist in return for
the North's provision of a long-waited list of its nuclear activities in June
under the six-party disarmament process. The U.S., however, delayed the measure,
citing Pyongyang's failure to agree to a verification system.
Pak called the U.S. demand to unilaterally disarm the North "brigandish,"
claiming that all six parties -- the U.S., South and North Korea, China, Japan
and Russia -- must receive "verification" in the final stage of the disarmament
process.
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