North Korea on Tuesday said it plans to restart its 5 megawatt nuclear reactor that was shut down under an agreement reached at the six-party talks in 2007, a move that will allow the North to extract plutonium from spent fuel rods.
   
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), citing a spokesman for the General Department of Atomic Energy, said measures will be taken to refurbish the graphite moderated reactor in Yongbyon so operations can resume.
   
The spokesman did not say when the reactor will be restarted, but claimed "immediate" action will be carried out.
   
The small reactor can be used to produce spent fuel rods that can be made into weapons-grade plutonium. The North probably usedplutonium as fissile material for its first and second nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, while experts are not sure if plutonium or uranium was used in the latest detonation conducted on Feb. 25. The North is known to have the capability to make nuclear weapons using enriched uranium. 

The official added that the measures are being taken in accordance with the decision made by the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea last month, which calls for self-sufficiency in the country's nuclear power industry. Such a development can support economic growth and bolster its atomic
weapons capability.
   
The KCNA said that the official pointed out that Pyongyang plans to expand and strengthen the country's nuclear power industrial sector so as to resolve the country's electricity problem, and use its atomic weapons capability to play a role in global denuclearization efforts.
   
The communist country suffers from acute power shortages, while it has insisted that it can give up its nuclear arsenal only if other countries, including the United States, engage in worldwide disarmament talks.
   
Shortly after the North's announcement, South Korea's foreign ministry condemned the move as "highly regrettable" and called for Pyongyang to comply with its past nuclear disarmament pledges.
   
"I was aware of the North's report. If it is true, it would be highly regrettable," foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young told reporters.
   
"North Korea must live up to its promises it made in the past and achieve denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula," Cho said, adding that his government is closely watching developments in North Korea.
   
Under an aid-for-denuclearization accord struck at the six-party talks, North Korea shut down the Yongbyon reactor in July 2007 and destroyed the reactor's cooling tower. (Yonhap News)