N KOREA BEGINS TO REBUILD NUCLEAR REACTOR

tauringhuang.

An international effort to denuclearise the Korean peninsula was in jeopardy yesterday after it emerged that North Korea had started reassembling its main nuclear reactor.

North Korea began disabling the reactor at Yongbyon last year in return for economic aid and diplomatic concessions, including its removal from a US list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

But the South Korean foreign ministry said yesterday that North Korea had begun reassembling the reactor in a protest against Washington's delay in removing it from the US list of state terrorism sponsors.

Any collapse in the so-called “six-party” deal to disarm North Korea would be a blow to the Bush administration, which has touted the agreement with Pyongyang as a foreign policy success