Nuclear-armed North Korea boasted Tuesday about the sophistication of its new uranium enrichment plant, a facility which has raised fears the regime wants to make more fuel for atom bombs.

Pyongyang issued its first report on the plant, which it says is for peaceful purposes, a week after launching a deadly artillery strike against the South and while a massive US-South Korean naval exercise was in full swing.

World powers fear that the volatile regime of Kim Jong-Il, which has twice tested atom bombs, is seeking to produce weapons-grade uranium on top of the plutonium it already has to use in a game of nuclear brinkmanship.

In a newspaper editorial carried by the official KCNA news agency, Pyongyang highlighted its nuclear accomplishments but insisted that a reactor it is building, and the fuel for it, are for civilian energy use only.

"We are actively building a light water reactor and, in order to meet the demand, we are operating a modern uranium enrichment system with many thousands of centrifuges," the KCNA report said.

Earlier this month the regime showed off its new Yongbyon uranium enrichment facilities near the capital to a visiting US nuclear scientist, who called the plant with 2,000 centrifuges "ultra-modern" and "stunning".

"These facilities appear to be designed primarily for civilian nuclear power, not to boost North Korea's military capability," wrote the scientist, Siegfried Hecker, but he also warned the facilities "could be readily converted to produce highly-enriched uranium bomb fuel."

On Tuesday North Korea insisted that its reactor -- which Hecker described as being in the early stages of construction -- and the enrichment facility to provide fuel is intended only to meet power demand.

Impoverished North Korea, aside from lacking enough food for its people, also suffers from chronic electricity shortages. Satellite photos at night show the country as a dark patch next to the well-lit South.

"Our nuclear energy development, which is for peaceful purposes and to solve the electricity demand, will be more active," KCNA added, citing an editorial from the ruling communist party's newspaper the Rodong Sinmun.

"Using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is a right that cannot be denied developing countries. Every country in the world should practise that right."

Many observers suspect more sinister motives.

For North Korea, sharing news on its nuclear programme "is another attempt to create an international crisis, attract the global spotlight and demonstrate its military prowess to the world," said Professor Kim Tae-Hyun of South Korea's Chung-Ang University Graduate School of International Studies.

North Korea -- under a pact reached in six-nation disarmament talks with South Korea China, Japan, Russia, and the United States -- in 2008 shut down an ageing reactor that had produced plutonium for its weapons drive.

But Pyongyang abandoned the six-party talks process in April 2009 and a month later staged its second atomic bomb test. In September last year it announced that it had reached the final stage of enriching uranium.

Tensions on the peninsula have spiked over the past week, since North Korea rained shells and rockets on a small South Korean border island, killing four people, wounding 18 and destroying two dozen houses.

Pyongyang has reacted furiously to the joint US-South Korean naval manoeuvres in the Yellow Sea, which are intended as a show of force to the North following the artillery barrage.

It says the naval drills are bringing the region closer to "the brink of war".

earlier related report
N.Korea touts nuclear prowess as China urges talks
Seoul (AFP) Nov 30, 2010 - North Korea boasted Tuesday to running "thousands" of nuclear centrifuges, a week after launching a deadly artillery attack on South Korea, as China pressed for six-nation crisis talks.

State media in the North, which has already tested two atomic bombs made from plutonium, said "many thousands of centrifuges" are operating to enrich uranium at a new plant which it claims is for peaceful energy purposes.

The country first disclosed the new plant to US experts less than two weeks before its artillery assault, which killed two civilians and two marines on a South Korean island near the disputed Yellow Sea border.

Experts and senior US officials fear the plant could easily be configured to make weapons-grade uranium.

Analysts say the nuclear revelation and artillery attack appeared coordinated to pressure Washington and Seoul into resuming dialogue and aid, and possibly to bolster the credentials of the North's leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-Un.

For a third day, the US and South Korean navies staged war games far south of the border involving 11 ships, air power and 7,300 personnel.

South Korea is separately strengthening artillery and troop numbers on frontline islands near the tense frontier.

The North's state media blasted the naval drill, saying it was provocative and heightened the risk of war.

"We have full deterrence to destroy our enemies at once," said cabinet newspaper Minju Chosun. "If the US and South Korean enemies dare to fire one shell in our territory and sea territory, they will have to pay for it."

China's refusal publicly to condemn its ally for the shelling -- the first of a civilian area in the South since the 1950-53 war -- has stirred anger in South Korea.

And its call for talks to end the crisis has so far received a dismissive response from the United States and its Japanese and South Korean allies.

China Sunday suggested emergency consultations between envoys to the stalled six-nation talks on the North's nuclear disarmament.

"Under the circumstances it is imperative and important to bring the issue back to the track of dialogue and consultation as soon as possible," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters Tuesday.

"We believe parties concerned will take our proposal seriously and react positively."

The White House had said such talks would amount to "PR activity" unless Pyongyang changes its behaviour.

"The North Koreans need to demonstrate a seriousness of purpose in ending their aggressive behaviour," spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday.

US ambassador Susan Rice urged tighter enforcement of UN sanctions in response to the "outrageous" artillery attack. China should play a "responsible leadership role" in defusing the crisis, she said.

Japan's foreign minister has also faulted China's proposal.

"It's unacceptable for us to hold six-party talks only because North Korea has gone amok," Seiji Maehara told the Wall Street Journal.

"We must first see some kind of sincere effort from North Korea, on its uranium enrichment programme and the latest incident."

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, in a toughly worded speech Monday, did not mention China's suggestion. But he said the North would not voluntarily mend its ways and promised to make it pay "a dear price" for any future attacks.

"We should recognise that (South Korea) is confronting the world's most belligerent group," he told a cabinet meeting Tuesday.

Almost 100 South Korean marine veterans landed on Yeonpyeong island Tuesday, vowing to defend it, ferret out spies -- and feed abandoned dogs.

"Execute Kim Jong-Il, Jong-Un," read a banner they erected after arriving by ferry, in reference to the North's leader and heir apparent.

With the nuclear disclosure and the bombardment, the North's leaders "demonstrated their ability to create trouble more or less with impunity", North Korea expert Andrei Lankov wrote in a commentary.

They "also hinted that they are not going to remain quiet if their demands for the resumption of unilateral aid and assorted political concessions are not met".

Diplomatic efforts were continuing, however.

Seoul's foreign ministry said its minister Kim Sung-Hwan would attend a Kazakhstan summit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Wednesday and Thursday.

It said he was expected to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines.

And two top North Korean officials arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, South Korean and Japanese media said.