Nuke Facilities in Nyongbyon to Start Operation

Following the North’s last nuclear test in 2007, however, there had been signs it was being renovated.

The declaration by North Korea’s state media agency claimed in that the country’s main nuclear facility at Yongbyon, within the country’s northwest, was “in full operation”.

The Foreign Ministry said North Korea is “not interested in dialogue on unilaterally freezing its nuclear program”.

About 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea to deter aggression from the North, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, which means the divided peninsula is still technically at war.

The atomic energy official also told the news agency that North Korea’s main nuclear complex at Yongbyon is operating normally – it contains a uranium enrichment plant and a plutonium production reactor.

In Seoul, President Park Geun Hye and visiting EU President Donald Tusk called on Pyongyang Tuesday to comply with relevant UN Security Council resolutions and refrain from further provocation.

After several failures, it put its first satellite into space with a long-range rocket launched in late 2012.

North Korea said Monday it is accelerating efforts in the final stage of development for satellites for Earth observation, hailing its “huge” progress in research on developing geostationary satellites.

Neighboring countries have considered North Korea’s previous launch of a rocket carrying a satellite, carried out in December 2012, to have been a thinly disguised test-firing of a long-range ballistic missile.

The director of North Korea’s Atomic Energy Institute said they are “fully prepared to respond with nuclear weapons at any time”, reports the state-run Korean Central News Agency, according to CNN.

Notorious for issuing alarming and attention-grabbing statements, Pyongyang has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons against the United States in the past.

Despite the domestic propaganda gains and value to the North’s military, a rocket launch or especially a nuclear test could come at a heavy cost for its regime. China joined the United Nations Security Council in a sanctions resolution after the 2013 test.

Analysts at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University believe the Sohae launchpad can now handle rockets up to 50 metres (165 feet) in length – nearly 70 percent longer than the Unha-3 rocket.

The official said South Korea has been in close consultations with its ally, the United States, but they have yet to detect any unusual movements in the North.