Unrepentant North Korea hails 'miracle' nuclear test

SEOUL:  A year after stunning the world with its first ever nuclear test, an unrepentant North Korea on Tuesday hailed the event as a 'miracle' for the Korean people.   

Leader Kim Jong-Il brought "the sky of lasting peace, prosperity and hope" to his people, the ruling communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said without directly mentioning the test.   

"We cannot really forget...a shout of joy in October Juche 95 (2006), which will be recorded permanently in 5,000 years of our history," the paper said in an editorial.   

"It was really a great miracle," it went on, enabling North Korea to emerge as "one of the world's most powerful nations."   

Rodong urged the people to unite behind Kim and become "rifles and bombs" for his leadership, which puts priority on the army. That is the only way to block an attempt by "enemies" to destroy the country, it said.   

North Korea has repeatedly said that it needs nuclear weapons to deter the United States from a pre-emptive attack.   

Its nuclear test on October 9, 2006 triggered global criticism, including from main ally China, as well as UN sanctions, but also an apparent softening of Washington's hardline policy.   

Three weeks later, after secret talks with his North Korean counterpart in Beijing, US envoy Christopher Hill announced that the communist nation would return to the six-nation nuclear talks which began in 2003.   

That forum, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, eventually reached a February 13 accord under which the North promised to declare and disable all its programmes in return for major energy aid and security and diplomatic breakthroughs.   

Last week it pledged to carry out the disablement - with the help of US experts - by the end of the year.   

Washington has promised to work toward removing the North from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and eventually normalising ties after its full denuclearisation.   

But some analysts believe that while Kim may shut down plutonium-producing programmes, he will never surrender the actual atomic weapons the regime has spent decades developing.   

Rodong newspaper also praised Kim for other actions which have heightened regional tensions. It said he brought glory to his country in 2003 by leading "a second nuclear standoff" with the United States.    

It was unclear what the reference was to. After the United States in late 2002 accused it of running a secret bomb-making programme and suspended oil shipments, the North in 2003 quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.   

The paper praised Kim for directing rocket launches in 1998 which sparked particular alarm in Japan when one passed over that country.   

Last year's nuclear test was conducted in a mountain near the northeastern town of Punggyeri in Kilju, North Hankyong Province, according to the United States.   

Its small scale sparked suggestions the North had not actually carried it through, but Washington confirmed the test a week later and noted it was less than one kiloton.   

The office of the Director of National Intelligence said that analysis of air samples from October 11 "detected radioactive debris which confirms that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion."   

A US official said the working assumption in the US intelligence community was that the test did not go as planned.