North Korea vowed Tuesday to restart its nuclear reactor and to boycott international disarmament talks for good in retaliation for the UN Security Council's condemnation of its rocket launch. North Korea's swift denunciation of the council's “hostile” move came hours after all 15 members unanimously agreed to condemn the April 5 launch as a violation of UN resolutions and to tighten sanctions against the regime. “The six-party talks have lost the meaning of their existence, never to recover,” the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, declaring it would never participate in the talks again and is no longer bound to previous agreements. On Tuesday, the North said it would restart nuclear facilities, an apparent reference to the five-megawatt plutonium-producing reactor and other facilities at Yongbyon. North Korea already is believed to have enough plutonium to produce at least about half a dozen atomic bombs. South Korea, expressing “deep regret,” also decided Tuesday to fully join the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a program launch in 2003 to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the presidential office said, a move bound to further infuriate Pyongyang. Analyst, Prof. Yoo Ho-yeol of Korea University in Seoul, called North Korea's move “strong action” against the US that betrays how upset the regime is by the Security Council statement.
