It is more than regrettable that North Korea is again stepping up its nuclear brinkmanship. The official (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday that the communist country has successfully conducted experimental uranium enrichment and entered into the completion phase. It also said that reprocessing of spent fuel rods is in the final stage and extracted plutonium is being weaponized.
Quoting a letter by Pyongyang's top U.N. envoy to the head of the U.N. Security Council, the report was apparently intended to reveal the North's attempt to resume provocative action after weeks of conciliatory gestures to hold bilateral talks with the United States. It is apparent that the world's last Stalinist country is again trying to play a nuclear card through a uranium enrichment process and the production of more atomic bombs with plutonium.
The latest nuclear blackmail is not new given the North's threat in June to begin uranium enrichment and to weaponize all the plutonium it extracted from its main nuclear facilities in Yongbyon. But it should not be a thing to be made light of because the North's move is in defiance of the international community, which has repeatedly called on the Kim Jong-il regime to return to six-party denuclearization talks.
The recalcitrant country is certainly showing its impatience at the Barack Obama administration's refusal to accept the North's offer of bilateral talks to mend ties between Pyongyang and Washington. The North seems to be putting more pressure on the U.S. to hold direct dialogue to neutralize the U.S.-led U.N. sanctions against its long-range missile launch and second nuclear test, as well as to extract more concessions from Washington.
Especially amid an Asian visit by Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, the Kim regime was reportedly attempting to grab his attention. But Pyongyang should realize that its provocative action will not work to scare the U.S., South Korea and other countries to yield to its irrational and excessive demands. There is no doubt that the best way of getting out of the nuclear deadlock is to return to the six-nation negotiations to move toward complete and verifiable denuclearization.
The North cannot solve the current crisis without giving up its nuclear ambitions. Its nuclear armament will unquestionably deepen its isolation and might lead to the implosion of the military regime. The North must recognize before it's too late that atomic weapons development is only a delusion of ``nuclear sovereignty'' that can do nothing to feed its starving people and rehabilitate its crumbling economy. Its survival will only be possible when it moves toward reconciliation, peace and co-existence.