N. Korea warns: We are building more nukes

North Korea has a stockpile of nuclear bombs and is building more such weapons, the country’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan has sa...

North Korea has a stockpile of nuclear bombs and is building more such weapons, the country’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan has said in a US television interview.

‘‘I should say that we have enough nuclear bombs to defend against a US attack,’’ the North Korean official told ABC news when asked how many nuclear bombs it possessed. Asked whether Pyongyang was building more nuclear bombs, Kim said: ‘‘Yes.’’

His open admission about North Korea’s nuclear weapon ambitions further clouds efforts to bring a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear crisis gripping the Korean peninsula.

Story continues below this ad

Washington believes that North Korea has one or two crude bombs and may have reprocessed enough plutonium for half-a-dozen more, from spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

Kim, North Korea’s chief negotiator in six-party talks designed to wean the hardline communist state from its nuclear weapons programme, would neither confirm or deny that North Korea had a missile capable of hitting the US.

He was also noncommital about North Korea’s ability to put a nuclear warhead on its long-range missiles. ‘‘Our scientists have knowledge comparable to other scientists around the world,’’ he said. ‘‘You can take it as you like.’’ But Kim stressed, there was no ‘‘intention of attacking the US.’’ —PTI

‘Grave insult to wounded people’: Cong lashes out at PM Modi amid his first Manipur visit

India9 hr ago

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Manipur for the first time since ethnic violence hit the state in May 2023, the Congress on Saturday called it a “farce, tokenism, and a grave insult to a wounded people”.

View all shorts

Live Blog