N.Korea 'Corrects' Nuclear Reprocessing Statement

April 21, 2003

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has quietly corrected an English-language Foreign Ministry statement to say Pyongyang was moving toward reprocessing nuclear fuel rods rather than having already done so.

On Friday the North caused confusion when the ministry said: "As we have already declared, we are successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase."

But on Monday, the official KCNA news agency's Web Site showed a new version with wording closer to the original Korean.

"As we have already declared, we are successfully going forward to reprocess work (sic) more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase," the newly worded statement said.

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