N Korea 'in final uranium phase' A real danger.

by Bunk | September 4, 2009 at 12:04 am

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This could be a very worrying sign for the future of North Korea, and its relationship to the rest of the world. North Korea seems to be prepared to not only to take whatever the UN has to offer in terms of sanctions, but openly flaunts threats, that it does not fear confrontation. This new annousment from North Korea comes, when it seem they were starting to lessen tensions between itself and the rest of the world. The release of the two American journalists. As well as meetings with South Korea just less than two weeks ago. North Korea seems a country who isolationist tactics they are unable to shake. With the fall of the USSR in the 1990's, and China becoming more interested in the west, and trade. North Korea is looking to the rest of the world, and maybe itself, as a relic of a different age. A relic though, that could be extremely dangerous to the future of the world.

North Korea has entered the final phase of uranium enrichment, the country's state media has reported.

"Uranium enrichment tests have been successfully carried out and that process is in the concluding stage," the North's KCNA news agency said.

Uranium enrichment would give Pyongyang a second way to make a nuclear bomb - but it also said it was continuing to reprocess and weaponise plutonium.

The UN passed tougher sanctions after a nuclear test by Pyongyang in May.

Both that test and an earlier nuclear test by North Korea in 2006 were understood to have been carried out with plutonium.

The worry is that uranium enrichment is a process that can be easily hidden, and in addition, North Korea has ample natural reserves of the raw material, says the BBC's John Sudworth in South Korea.