SEOUL - North Korea says it has completed reprocessing spent fuel rods which will allow it to make more fuel for nuclear weapons.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency says the country has finished processing 8,000 spent fuel rods that experts say could give the communist nation enough plutonium to make at least one atomic bomb.

The announcement comes just one day after North Korea’s foreign ministry pressed the United States to agree to direct talks. The North warned that if the U.S. is not ready to sit at the negotiating table, it will go its own way.

Pyongyang quit international six-nation talks on ending its nuclear weapons programs earlier this year in April after the United Nations criticized its launch of a long-range rocket.

In May, North Korea carried out its second atomic weapons test.

The KCNA report on Tuesday says the Security Council’s criticism was what it called a “wanton infringement” of its sovereignty.

Source:  VOA News