North Korea has ordered UN inspectors to leave after saying it would quit international nuclear disarmament talks and restart a plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium.
The UN Security Council yesterday unanimously condemned North Korea's rocket launch on 5 April as contravening a UN ban and demanded enforcement of existing sanctions.
North Korea said in a statement the UN action and separate six-country nuclear talks were an infringement of its sovereignty and it 'will never participate in the (nuclear) talks any longer nor ... be bound to any agreement'.
The statement, carried by the official KCNA news agency, said North Korea would 'bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way'.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said North Korea had ordered UN inspectors to leave the reclusive communist country.
'(North Korea) has today informed IAEA inspectors in the Yongbyon facility that it is immediately ceasing all cooperation,' IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said in a statement issued in Vienna.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: 'North Korea will not find acceptance by the international community unless it verifiably abandons its pursuit of nuclear weapons.'
North Korea began taking apart its Yongbyon nuclear plant more than a year ago as a part of a disarmament-for-aid deal it reached with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US.
As well as the US, Japan and Russia also urged North Korea to return to the often-stalled nuclear talks.
But China called on all parties to pay attention to the broader picture and exercise calm and restraint.
