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N. Korea says withdrawing from nuclear treaty is 'self defense'State media reports huge Pyongyang rally
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- North Korean representatives went on the defensive Saturday, saying Pyongyang was acting in "self defense" by pulling out of the nuclear non proliferation treaty (NPT), but also issuing a new threat to drop its self-imposed missile moratorium. "We believe we cannot continue our self-imposed missile moratorium, now that the United States has made all agreements invalid," North Korea's ambassador to China Cho Jin Su said at a news conference in Beijing. Concerns have been raised about North Korea's missile development program, with some U.S. defense analysts saying it could roll out a missile capable of hitting the continental United States before 2015. Pyongyang insists its missile program is purely for peaceful space research purposes but has so far stuck by its self-imposed moratorium on test launches in 1999. Pyongyang also insists that its withdrawal from the NPT is for peaceful purposes only. "Although we pulled out of the NPT, we have no intention to produce nuclear weapons," Cho said. "Our nuclear activities at this stage will only be reserved for peaceful means, such as for the production of electricity." The same statement was reiterated in Vienna, where North Korean Ambassador to Austria Kim Gwang Sop said North Korea was acting in "self defense." "The decision of our withdrawal from NPT is legitimate self-defense measure," Kim said. "We made it clear that we have no intention to produce nuclear weapons ... If United States drops its hostile policy to stifle Democratic People's Republic of Korea and stops nuclear threat, Democratic People's Republic of Korea may prove through separate verification between DPRK and United States that it doesn't make any nuclear weapon." Son Mun San, the counselor for relations with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday North Korea would be ready to start the Yongbyon nuclear reactor in a few weeks, not months as the IAEA initially believed. He made it very clear that Yongbyon would only be used to produce energy. On December 31, North Korea kicked out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors stationed at the plant, leaving behind an unmonitored nuclear program in a nation the United States has dubbed part of an "axis of evil." Son said North Korea needed the energy from the plant badly and was forced to reactivate the plant. Pyongyang maintains it was forced to restart its nuclear plants to provide fuel after Washington stopped sending fuel shipments to North Korea, which it said was a violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. However, Washington says it stopped sending the fuel after North Korea disclosed it had a nuclear weapons program in October. 'Life and death battle'
According to the official North Korean news agency KCNA more than a million people attended Saturday's rally in Pyongyang, with senior government officials addressing the crowd and giving details of Friday's decision to pull out of the non-proliferation treaty. "The participants are fully determined to use every means and method and fight a life-and-death battle against those who try to infringe upon the nation's sovereignty and right to existence without any slightest compromise and concession," KCNA said. The comment was apparently directed at the United States, which has condemned the North's decision to withdraw from the treaty. Speakers at the rally said the withdrawal from the treaty was "a legitimate measure for self-defense," KCNA said. Announcing its decision Friday, North Korea blamed what it called Washington's "hostile" policy for pushing it to withdraw from the treaty. However, the North Korean statement added that although it was withdrawing from the treaty it had no intention of developing nuclear weapons. CondemnationThe moves makes North Korea the first country to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty -- a move that has been met with condemnation from around the world. The treaty, signed by more then 187 nations, is designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. On Friday U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned the North's decision, saying Pyongyang had "thumbed its nose" at the international community. (Full story) Tensions have been rising on the Korean Peninsula since last October when U.S. officials say North Korean officials admitted to them that they had continued with work to build nuclear weapons in defiance of a 1994 agreement. There has however not been any official statement directly from the North admitting that it has an active nuclear weapons program. Nonetheless, last month it expelled United Nations nuclear inspectors and began removing monitoring equipment from its mothballed Yongbyon nuclear facility. The reactor, capable of producing plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, was shut down under the 1994 agreement with the United States. North Korea now says it needs to restart the facility because it needs the electricity it can generate -- a claim disputed by the U.N. inspectors and a range of international experts who say the plant generates only a tiny amount of power.
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