NEWS: North Korea says it has nuclear weapons. Options

[Mynzeyes]

File photo from 1996 of spent fuel rods at
North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility.

(CNN) -- Citing what it calls U.S. threats to topple its political system, North Korea said it is dropping out of six-party nuclear talks and will "bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal," the country's official news agency KCNA said Thursday.

The report was North Korea's first public admission that it possessed nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang previously has asserted its ability and right to produce them. In April 2003, U.S. officials said that North Koreans claimed in private meetings they had at least one nuclear bomb.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on North Korea to reconsider its decision to withdraw from the talks or risk further isolation.

Rice said the North Koreans, by leaving negotiations, would be "deepening their isolation because everyone in the international community, and most especially North Korea's neighbors, have been very clear that there needs to be no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula in order to maintain stability in that region."

In the statement reported by KCNA, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said: "We have shown utmost magnanimity and patience for the past four years since the first Bush administration swore in.

"We cannot spend another four years as we did in the past four years, and there is no need for us to repeat what we did in those years."


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ugh...this is gonna suck...