PYONGYANG, November 30 (Itar-Tass) — North Korea North Korea “at an accelerated pace is creating an experimental light-water nuclear reactor and implementing a program for the production of low-enriched uranium,” an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) stated here on Wednesday. According to him, the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is a “legitimate right of every sovereign state.” Such a reactor would “solve the problem of electricity shortage in the DPRK,” the diplomat said.
“The North’s official Korean Central Agency (KCNA) reported that "The DPRK’s building of an independent light water reactor and its operation of uranium enrichment factory are the natural outcome of the United States’ perfidy as it broke its promise to provide light water reactors to it,” the Rodong Sinmun newspaper wrote Wednesday in a signed commentary.
“The building of the independent LWR to round off the structure of nuclear energy industry is making brisk headway in the DPRK and a modern uranium enrichment factory with thousands of centrifuges is operating on a normal footing to feed fuel to the LWR,” the commentary noted, and continued:
“This being a hard reality, the US and other forces, prompted by their perverted intentions, are contemplating stronger pressure and sanctions against the DPRK over its issue of LWR though it is meant for producing electricity.” “The DPRK chose to build an independent LWR with its own resources and its own technology to round off the structure of the Juche-oriented nuclear energy industry. This was its natural option in the light of the legitimate right to nuclear activities for peaceful purposes, the worldwide trend of developing nuclear energy and the country’s daily increasing demand for electricity.”
“The US has no face to take issue with the DPRK·s nuclear activities for peaceful purposes.” “The DPRK-US Agreed Framework signed in 1994 calls on the US to build two LWRs and provide them to the DPRK on a turn-key basis by 2003.”
“Had the US kept the above-said promise, the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula would have not remained so complicated as now.” “It is universally recognized right of the countries both inside and outside the NPT to exercise the above-said right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It is entirely just for the DPRK to exercise this legitimate right.”