North Korea has entered the final phase of uranium enrichment, the North's state media are reported as saying by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

韩国瀛海社报道，朝鲜进入铀浓缩的最后阶段。

N Korea's known nuclear programme is based around its Yongbyon plant

"Uranium enrichment tests have been successfully carried out and that process is in the concluding stage," state media were quoted as saying.

If confirmed, the move would be in defiance¹ of（违抗，无视） international pressure for the North to abandon its nuclear work.

The UN passed tougher sanctions after a nuclear test by Pyongyang in May.

Both that test and an earlier nuclear test by North Korea in 2006 were understood to have been plutonium（钚）-based warheads（弹头）.

Defiance

The North's KCNA news agency reported that North Korea's delegation²（代表团，委派） at the United Nations had written to the Security Council, saying Pyongyang was now ready "for both sanctions and dialogue".

"Reprocessing of spent fuel rods（核乏燃料棒） is at its final phase and extracted plutonium is being weaponised," the AFP news agency reported the delegation as saying.

"If some permanent members of the UN Security Council wish to put sanctions first before dialogue, we would respond with bolstering³（支持） our nuclear deterrence⁴（核威慑能力） first before we meet them in a dialogue," the delegation said.

South Korea's defence minister had warned in June that the North was going ahead with plans to enrich uranium（铀）, a step towards making nuclear weapons.

Observers say the US has long suspected the existence of a secret uranium enrichment programme in the North, though experts say it remains⁵ little-developed.

In the past few months, North Korea has fired a long-range rocket over Japanese territory and conducted an underground, plutonium-based nuclear test.

Renewed tensions

But more recently, the secretive communist nation has made more conciliatory gestures on the world stage.

Two US reporters and a South Korean worker were released from detention⁶ and Pyongyang said it was interested in resuming cross-border tourismand industrial projects with the South.

Less than two weeks ago, the first meeting between officials from the North and South for nearly two years took place unexpectedly in the southern capital, Seoul.

However, the latest communique（公报） indicated that the North was unhappy that the UN allowed South Korea to launch a satellite last month, after having condemned⁷ its own rocket launch in April, Reuters reported.

Correspondents said Pyongyang's latest remarks appeared to seek once again to ratchet up（增加，渐进） tensions on the Korean peninsula.