North Korea Says Reactor Could Be Restarted

The country stopped dismantling the complex because the United States has not kept its end of a disarmament-for-aid deal, North Korean diplomat Hyun Hak Bong told reporters, according to the Associated Press.

"We are making thorough preparations to restart" the facility, which can produce weapons-grade plutonium, he said. He did not say when it would be running again.

North Korea has said that Washington agreed to remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism once it started disabling the reactor and submitted a declaration of its nuclear activities, as it did last June. But the United States says the North must permit a comprehensive inspection to ensure it did not omit crucial data.

However, the North Korean Foreign Ministry signaled Friday that it is hardening its stance against Washington amid reports that leader Kim Jong Il, 66, suffered a stroke and could be seriously ill. He has not been seen in public for more than a month.

"We neither wish, nor expect, to be delisted as a 'state sponsor of terrorism,'" the North's state-run news agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying, the New York Times reported. "We can go our own way."

The landmark 2007 disarmament pact -- made with the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan -- called on Pyongyang to give up and disable its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid.

North Korea began disabling the complex last year, and the process was 90 percent complete, Hyun said.

South Korean officials say the North completed eight of 11 key disablement measures at Yongbyon, but have received only half the promised international energy aid.

On Friday, Hyun warned Washington not to press the verification issue, saying that was never part of the deal.

"The U.S. is insisting that we accept unilateral demands that had not been agreed upon. They want to go anywhere at any time to collect samples and carry out examinations with measuring equipment," he said. "That means they intend to force an inspection."

The United States responded Friday, saying North Korea must make a choice about whether it wants to have a better relationship with the world or "keep themselves isolated."

Asked why the North should deal with the Bush administration in its final months in office, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Pyongyang is unlikely to get a different disarmament deal from the next administration in January.

McCormack said that North Korea has been "getting closer and closer" to the point where it will restart the reactor but has not gotten there yet. He urged the country "not to get to that point."

"They can go down the pathway of having a different kind of relationship with the rest of the world, receiving the benefits of that relationship or they can keep themselves isolated and move the process backwards," he said, according to Reuters.