The IISS warned that Obama’s insistence on waiting for Pyongyang to kickstart efforts to re-engage with the international community had so far yielded little. ‘So far, strategic patience has not succeeded in bringing about change in North Korea,’ the London-based group concluded in its annual review of world affairs.
‘Pyongyang is instead moving further away from the denuclearisation pledge and closer to projecting nuclear power over long ranges,’ it said.
The IISS review coincided with reports - based on new satellite pictures - that North Korea had restarted operations at the Yongbyon plutonium reactor that it shut down in 2007.
Russia said on Thursday that it too believed North Korea was conducting work at the Yongbyon complex, and warned that the ageing facility was in such a ‘nightmarish state’ it could cause a disaster.
‘According to some signs, steps were indeed being taken to relaunch it,’ the Interfax news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying.