By Matthew Champion.
South Korea has described North Korea's announcement on Thursday that it had entered the final phase of uranium enrichment as 'intolerable'.
The state-run news agency in the north announced last night its enrichment process, which would give it a second possible way to manufacture warheads, was in 'completion phase'.
The statement came after an apparent warming in relations between Pyongyang and Seoul that saw two US journalists convicted of trespassing given an official pardon and a restoration of trade and travel links with the south.
But the latest move has thrown relations between the two countries, and that of the north and the outside world, into doubt in what analysts say is North Korea oscillating between confrontational and conciliatory in order to obtain the best possible aid deal from the west.
After the statement was issued last night by the Korean Central News Agency, the South Korean foreign ministry said: 'This is intolerable. The government will take a stern and consistent response to North Korea's threats and provocations.'
The US envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth added: 'I think for all of us, it reconfirms the necessity to maintain a coordinated position on the need for complete, verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.'
In the last year, amid rumours of the failing health of supreme leader Kim Jong-il, the north has carried out underground nuclear tests with existing plutonium devices and fired long-range missiles over Japan.
The Koreas officially remain at war with each other, having never formally signed a peace treaty when hostilities in the 1950-53 conflict ended.
South Korea has described North Korea's announcement on Thursday that it had entered the final phase of uranium enrichment as 'intolerable'.
The state-run news agency in the north announced last night its enrichment process, which would give it a second possible way to manufacture warheads, was in 'completion phase'.
The statement came after an apparent warming in relations between Pyongyang and Seoul that saw two US journalists convicted of trespassing given an official pardon and a restoration of trade and travel links with the south.
But the latest move has thrown relations between the two countries, and that of the north and the outside world, into doubt in what analysts say is North Korea oscillating between confrontational and conciliatory in order to obtain the best possible aid deal from the west.
After the statement was issued last night by the Korean Central News Agency, the South Korean foreign ministry said: 'This is intolerable. The government will take a stern and consistent response to North Korea's threats and provocations.'
The US envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth added: 'I think for all of us, it reconfirms the necessity to maintain a coordinated position on the need for complete, verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.'
In the last year, amid rumours of the failing health of supreme leader Kim Jong-il, the north has carried out underground nuclear tests with existing plutonium devices and fired long-range missiles over Japan.
The Koreas officially remain at war with each other, having never formally signed a peace treaty when hostilities in the 1950-53 conflict ended.
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