IAEA Condemns North Korea Nuke Program

The U.N. nuclear watchdog has adopted a resolution, condemning North Korea's nuclear weapons program "in the strongest terms" and demanding Pyongyang take "concrete steps" toward denuclearization, foreign ministry here said Saturday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency adopted the resolution unanimously as it wrapped up its general conference in Vienna, according to the ministry. "The latest resolution pointed out the North's resumption of reprocessing activities this year and condemned the North's continued nuclear activities in a stronger manner than last year," the ministry said in a press release carried by Yonhap News Agency. 

The IAEA and its members reaffirmed their stance that they will not tolerate the North owning nuclear weapons, while strongly deploring its persistent pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. They also urged the communist state to dismantle all of its nuclear weapons and related programs in compliance with the denuclearization promise made with other six-party negotiation countries in 2005, the ministry said. 

North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test earlier last month in defiance of multiple global warnings and it came just eight months after its fourth one in January. The latest nuclear warhead detonation test is regarded as the most powerful.

In a speech at the IAEA meeting, Kim Hong-kyun, South Korea's top nuclear envoy, called upon the agency to send a "firm" message to the North, raising worries that it is "at the final stage of nuclear weaponization."

Source : QNA