North Korea boasted that it was building more nuclear bombs ahead of the South Korean leader's trip to Washington to meet Friday with U.S. President George W. Bush on deadlocked international efforts to get the communist state to disarm. The North is widely believed to have enough weapons-grade plutonium for a half-dozen nuclear bombs, and has made recent moves that could allow it to harvest more. Asked if it was building more bombs, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan told a U.S. television network: «Yes.» «As for specifically how many we have, that is a secret,» he told ABC on Wednesday. Kim also implied the North was able to mount nuclear warheads on its missiles. «Our scientists have the knowledge, comparable to other scientists around the world,» he said when asked about the capability, according to AP. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is traveling half-way around the world to Washington for a single-day trip to meet with Bush as as their countries' half-century-old alliance faces new challenges _ mostly over how to deal with North Korea. --More 1257 Local Time 0957 GMT
