N Korea blames US for fanning N-fears

SEOUL: North Korea blamed US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly on Sunday for stoking the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula by saying the communist state could get nuclear weapons capability in the short term.

Kelly told Congress last week North Korea could produce highly enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear weapons in months not years — earlier than many predicted — and that the provocations were designed to blackmail the United States. “After visiting the DPRK (North Korea) as a special envoy of the US president, he (James Kelly) floated misinformation before the international community that the DPRK “admitted” to what he called ‘secret nuclear weapons development programme’,” Pyongyang newspaper Rodong Sinmun said on Sunday.

The plot hatched by him against the DPRK has brought about such serious consequences as sparking the second nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula and pushing the hostile relations between the DPRK and the US to the worst phase,” the paper said. The newspaper said Kelly’s remarks were nothing but mud-slinging and vituperation against Pyongyang and a revelation of Washington’s “sinister intention” to isolate it internationally and destroy it at any cost. —AFP

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