Japan criticizes N Korea over enrichment

Japan has criticized North Korea saying Pyongyang’s move to construct and launch a uranium enrichment facility is “absolutely unacceptable.”

Japanese government spokesman Yoshito Sengoku claimed on Monday that North Korea’s uranium enrichment program would jeopardize regional security and stability.

Meanwhile, US special representative to North Korea Stephen Bosworth said Pyongyang’s uranium enrichment program was “very unfortunate, but not a crisis.”

Bosworth pointed out that more intelligence and analysis was required on the reality of the program.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates also said that the “uranium enrichment gives Pyongyang the potential to build more nuclear arms.”

This comes after an American scientist claimed North Korea had shown him a new enrichment plant with hundreds of centrifuges.

The American scientist, Siegfried Hecker, posted a report over the weekend, saying that during a recent trip to the North’s main Yongbyon atomic complex, he was taken to a small, industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility.

Hecker, a former director of the US Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, who is regularly given glimpses of the North’s nuclear program, said the North Korean program had been built in secret and with remarkable speed.

North Korea and the US have been at loggerheads over North Korea’s nuclear program as Pyongyang accuses Washington of seeking regime change.