North Korea Says It Has Turned Plutonium Into Nuclear Weapons

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea has turned plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons to serve as a deterrent against a possible nuclear strike by the United States, a North Korean official said Monday.

Without specifying what kinds or the number of weapons the nation has, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said North Korea had been left with “no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent” because of U.S. policies that he said were designed to eliminate his country.

North Korea previously said this year that it had reprocessed the spent nuclear fuel rods and was increasing its “nuclear deterrent” but had not provided any details.

At a news conference with a small number of reporters, Choe was asked what was included in the nuclear deterrent.

“We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms,” he said.

When asked if the fuel had been turned into actual weapons, not just weapons-grade material, Choe said: “We declared that we weaponized this.”

On Monday, Choe told the U.N. General Assembly that North Korea was still ready to dismantle its nuclear program if Washington abandoned its “hostile policy.”

In Washington, a State Department official noted that the Bush administration had long believed that North Korea had at least one or two nuclear weapons. The official, who asked not to be identified, also said the North Koreans had made conflicting statements about how far their weapons development programs had come.