North Korea says it has completed reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to extract weapons-grade plutonium.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said on Tuesday that the country has finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods that could give the communist nation enough plutonium to make at least one atomic bomb.
The announcement comes amid North Korean attempts to pressure the United States into accepting its demand for direct talks.
North Korea in April declared the six-nation forum and its agreements to be null and void after the United Nations condemned its long-range rocket launch. Early in October, the country announced