The United States urged North Korea to stop boasting about its nuclear capability and return to the six-way talks to resolve the nuclear crisis.
Speaking to journalists in New York, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-Hon claimed Monday that Pyongyang had turned plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons to serve as a deterrent against a possible nuclear strike by the U.S.
Choe's remarks were unprecedentedly explicit, as the communist state has previously used vague terms such as "nuclear deterrent" to refer to its capability.
In response, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Pyongyang's rhetoric "does not alter the fundamental situation but simply reinforces the need to eliminate nuclear weapons programs on the Korean Peninsula through negotiations."
Boucher said he did not hold out any hope for the North to return to negotiations but would not rule it out altogether as the month had not ended.
However U.S. lawmakers of the Democratic Party is demanding the Bush administration to urgently address the issue, pointing to the failure of Bush's North Korean policies if the communist did, in fact, weaponize nuclear material.
However, Republicans are not likely to bring the issue to the fore, prior to the presidential election pending in November.