North Korea announced today for the first time that it had nuclear arms and rejected the Bush Administration's attempts to restart disarmament.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry issued a statement: “We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration’s ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North).”
Condi Rice replied later in the day, “We have for some time taken account of the capability of the North Koreans to perhaps have a few nuclear weapons,” Rice said.
Rice also assured the North Koreans that the United States had no intention of attacking or invading the country. That's good for U.S. troops some observers say, who may find it difficult to wage war in North Korea while nuclear bombs are exploding on them.
Since 2003, the United States, North and South Korea, China, Japan and Russia have held a series of in Beijing, China to try and persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
On Thursday, North Korea said it decided not to rejoin any future talks after Rice labeled North Korea an “outpost of tyranny.”
This pronoucement affirmed Bush’s labeling of North Korea several years ago as a partner in the “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq.
