DPRK restarts operating nuclear facility

PYONGYANG - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Tuesday it has decided to restart operations at the Nyongbyon nuclear complex.

A spokesman for the General Department of Atomic Energy told the official KCNA news agency that the country will "readjust" and "restart" all nuclear facilities at the complex, including a uranium enrichment plant and a 5MW graphite moderated reactor that had been "mothballed and disabled under an agreement reached at the six-party talks in October 2007. "

The spokesman said the decision was made at a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on March 31 to cure the country's electricity shortage and boost up nuclear armed forces.

Such a move came days after the DPRK claimed that it had entered a "state of war" with South Korea.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Monday instructed the military to strongly respond to possible provocation by the DPRK without any political considerations.

Tensions have been running high on the Korean Peninsula since the DPRK conducted its third nuclear test on February 12 as a countermeasure against the joint military drills of the United States and South Korea.

The DPRK has also threatened to launch a preemptive nuclear strike for self-defense and unilaterally nullified the 1953 armistice that suspended the Korean War.

The U.S. Navy was moving a sea-based radar platform closer to the Korean Peninsula in order to monitor military moves of the DPRK, including possible new missile launches, CNN quoted a Pentagon official as saying on Monday.

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