N. Korea says it may ‘go its own way’

The regime’s impatience came days after number two nuclear negotiator Ri Gun came away from meetings with Washington envoy Sung Kim without an agreement to hold bilateral talks.

“If the US is not ready to sit at a negotiating table with the [North], it will go its own way,’’ the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The statement did not elaborate, but it was widely seen as a warning that the North will bolster its nuclear stockpile - a brinksmanship tactic that the communist nation has often employed.

In September, the North said it was “weaponizing’’ plutonium, a key ingredient for nuclear bombs, and had succeeded in uranium enrichment, which would give the regime a second way to make atomic bombs. That was also seen as a pressure tactic aimed at getting Washington to agree to one-on-one negotiations.

North Korea has mixed such threats with a series of conciliatory moves, such as releasing two detained American journalists, after months of raising tensions with nuclear and missile tests. The North has also quit the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks that involved China, Japan, Russia, the United States, and the two Koreas.

North Korea and the United States fought on opposite sides of the Korean War of the 1950s and do not have diplomatic relations. Both nations have tanks and troops on guard at the heavily fortified border dividing the Koreas.

Pyongyang claims it must develop atomic weapons to defend itself against nuclear threats from the United States. The regime has long sought direct negotiations with Washington, saying it was because of US nuclear threats that the country developed nuclear bombs.

Washington has denied it has any intention of attacking the North. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured Seoul last month that Washington was prepared to unleash all military capabilities, including its nuclear might, to defend the ally.