PYONGYANG, May 11 (Xinhuanet) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced on Wednesday that it had recently finished unloading 8,000 spent fuel rods from a 5-megawatt pilot nuclear reactor.

    "The relevant field of the DPRK has successfully finished the unloading of 8,000 spent fuel rods from the 5-megawatt pilot nuclear plant in the shortest period recently," a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said.

    "Because the Bush administration (of the United States) threatened the DPRK with nuclear weapons in violation of the DPRK-US Agreed Framework," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted the spokesman as saying, "the DPRK had already declared in December 2002 that it would re-operate the nuclear plant and resume the construction of two other nuclear plants, one with a capacity of 50,000 kw and the other with a capacity of 200,000 kw."

    "The DPRK keeps taking necessary measures to bolster its nuclear arsenal for the defensive purpose of coping with the prevailing situation, with a main emphasis on developing the self-reliant nuclear power industry," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

    The 5-megawatt reactor, which is reportedly in Nyongbyon, about80 km north of the capital city of Pyongyang, is a graphite-moderated nuclear reactor. The spent fuel rods removed from such reactors can be enriched into weapons-grade plutonium.

    In an agreement between the DPRK and the United States in 1994,the United States promised to construct two light-water reactors for the DPRK in exchange for the freezing of the DPRK's nuclear facilities.

    However, in late 2002, the DPRK accused the US of failing to fulfill its promise and announced it would re-operate its nuclear facilities.

    In April 2003, the DPRK said the reprocessing of its 8,000 spent fuel rods had "successfully entered the final phase." Enditem