N. Korea snubs Seoul's denial of its nuclear status

SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea renewed its claim Tuesday that it is already a nuclear power, snubbing South Korea's denial of the status as a useless attempt to change the reality.

Rodong Sinmun, a newspaper published by the North's Workers' Party, said in a
commentary that Seoul bears the blame for strained inter-Korean relations and
declared North Korea to be a nuclear state that conducted a successful atomic
bomb test in 2006.
Seoul maintains that the North will never be recognized as a nuclear state, as
the term only refers to nations who already possessed nuclear capabilities when
the nuclear non-proliferation treaty was adopted in 1970.
"Even if the dog barks, the train runs. However malicious the Lee Myung-bak group
may be, the situation won't change at all," the newspaper said.
There was a brief confusion early this month when the U.S. Joint Forces Command
categorized the North as one of five nuclear powers in Asia, along with China,
Russia, India and Pakistan.
The U.S. State Department promptly dismissed the categorization as a simple
mistake, saying, "That is not our national policy. And the document they
referenced does not represent the official views of the United States."
Seoul's Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee has said Pyongyang may try use Washington's
mistake to its advantage and promote itself as a nuclear power.
Seoul and Washington believe Pyongyang's 2006 nuclear test was only a partial
success.
"The fact that the U.S. announced our republic as a nuclear power reflected the
irrefutable reality. The color red cannot become black even if the color blind
say it's black," the North's commentary said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)