SEOUL, (Reuters) – North Korea ordered U.N. inspectors to leave yesterday after saying it would quit international nuclear disarmament talks and restart a plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium, the United Nations said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly criticized the expulsions and said she hoped the United States and its allies could discuss it with the North. We are viewing this as an unnecessary response to the legitimate statement put out of concern by the Security Council,” Clinton told reporters in Washington.
The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously condemned North Korea’s rocket launch on April 5 as contravening a U.N. ban and demanded enforcement of existing sanctions.
“Obviously we hope that there will be an opportunity to discuss this not only with our partners and allies but also eventually with the North Koreans,” added Clinton, who was set to meet a senior Chinese official in Washington.
North Korea said in a statement the U.N. action and separate six-country nuclear talks were an infringement of its sovereignty and it “will never participate in the talks any longer nor … be bound to any agreement.”
The statement, carried by the official KCNA news agency, said North Korea would “bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way.”
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said North Korea had ordered U.N. inspectors to leave the reclusive communist country. “(North Korea) has today informed IAEA inspectors in the Yongbyon facility that it is immediately ceasing all cooperation,” IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said in a statement issued in Vienna. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “North Korea will not find acceptance by the international community unless it verifiably abandons its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
Experts said the poor, energy-starved North lacked the technology to make an advanced light-water reactor.
Financial markets in Seoul and Tokyo were not affected by North Korea’s announcement, with investors seeing it as more of the sabre-rattling they have come to expect from Pyongyang.
