SOUTH KOREA: South Korea poured cold water on its northern neighbour's declaration last week that it had nuclear weapons, saying there was still no proof that Pyongyang had nuclear bombs.
"There is no doubt that North Korea has 10 to 14 kilos of plutonium, but there is no evidence that the North has turned it into plutonium bombs," Mr Chung Dong-young, South Korea's minister for unification, told the parliament in Seoul.
Mr Chung is Seoul's top official dealing with relations with North Korea and is also standing committee chairman of the National Security Council, which advises South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
His statement was the latest twist in a long-running saga over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Tensions rose sharply last Thursday when Pyongyang boasted it had nuclear weapons and that it was boycotting six-party talks to end a two-year stand-off because of what it called US hostility.
Mr Chung said Seoul would continue its policy of reconciliation with North Korea, for the time being at least, justifying his position with some deft semantics.
"We see it as a claim to own nuclear weapons, not an official statement of being a nuclear weapons state," he said.
The North's case is different from that of India or Pakistan, which declared its possession of nuclear weapons by conducting underground nuclear tests in 1998, he said.
The shock announcement by Pyongyang of its nuclear capabilities took the region by storm, but Mr Chung said the announcement was made to put pressure on Washington and was aimed at boosting its negotiating position in the six-country talks, currently stalled.
South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia met for three rounds of talks in Beijing aimed at ending the North's nuclear programmes in return for aid and security guarantees.
A planned fourth round has yet to take place, but China has said it will try and get North Korea back into negotiations.
Proliferation experts reckon that North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons made from plutonium.
US intelligence experts estimate that North Korea could make several more within months, although there are doubts the country has the missiles to transport the warheads.