A senior engineer at a North Korean thermal power plant says Pyongyang can build a light-water reactor on its own.

Chung Myong-in said in an interview with a pro-Pyongyang daily of ethnic Koreans in Japan carried Friday that Pyongyang should also further develop nuclear energy in addition to thermal and water power.

Working at the East Pyongyang Thermal Power Plant, he said that given the North's solid foundation in nuclear energy, his nation is capable of building a light-water reactor that the U.S. had promised to provide, but canceled.