Seoul: North Korean nuclear progress 'real threat'

North Korea has made considerable progress in developing a fairly robust nuclear program in the past three years and is capable of making atomic weapons at any time, the South Korean Defense Ministry said Tuesday, local media reported. "North Korea's nuclear program remained at a developmental and experimental stage in 2010, but it has grown into a real threat in 2013, and it is able to make a nuclear device at any time," the ministry said in a report to the parliamentary defense committee, according to Yonhap News Agency. "China's changing attitude toward North Korea proves the seriousness of (its nuclear program),"the ministry said. Tensions escalated between the two Koreas when Pyongyang in December fired a long-range rocket, which was deemed as a covert test of its ballistic missile technology, and then in February conducted its third atomic test. Both actions triggered additional UN Security Council sanctions against the impoverished nation. In April, the North announced that its nuclear scientists will begin work on restarting a uranium enrichment plant and a five-megawatt reactor in the Yongbyon complex. "North Korea is preparing to resume its nuclear facility in Yongbyon and continues to develop missiles," the ministry said. "The South Korean military needs to beef up deterrence capabilities against a worsening North Korean threat." Amid inter-Korean talks to resume cross-border projects, Pyongyang expressed its willingness to rejoin the six-party talks but has shown no signs of accepting conditions set by Seoul and Washington to give up its nuclear capabilities. Instead, it has insisted on being recognized as a nuclear power. The six-party talks involving the US, North Korea, South Korea, China Japan and Russia aimed at ending the North's nuclear program, but the talks have been stalled since late 2008. The two Koreas still remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.