Nuclear moves

Pyongyang, North Korea

North Korea shut down a reactor at its main nuclear weapons complex this week, and officials said they were planning to extract nuclear fuel to make more bombs. North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the U.N., Han Songryol, told USA Today that his nation was planning to reprocess spent fuel rods as a means of defending itself against U.S. aggression. The CIA estimates that North Korea already has from two to eight nuclear weapons; the new fuel could give it six more. Talks between North Korea and the U.S. have stalled because North Korea insists on bilateral negotiations while the U.S. demands that other countries be included as well. “Running reactors or not running reactors, reprocessing or not reprocessing, is not going to give North Korea solutions to its troubles,” said State Dept. spokesman Richard Boucher.

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