Zeenews Bureau
Tokyo: In a startling revelation, reports on Monday said that North Korea`s late leader Kim Jong-il had ordered the production of nuclear weapons using both uranium and plutonium.
The Japanese news reports cited an internal document obtained from Pyongyang.
According to the Mainichi Shimbun and Tokyo Shimbun, the document was supposedly compiled in February this year for senior officials of the North`s Workers` Party.
The document also refers to inspections by US experts of uranium-enrichment facilities in November 2010.
North Korea conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
“(The) US and other hostile forces were complaining we are trying to produce uranium to make nuclear weapons," the document says, the Mainichi reported, under a Beijing dateline.
"To tell the truth ... (the late leader said) we are not waiting for the uranium-enriching technology to develop so it can be put to use by civilian industries" such as power generation.
"From a military point of view, it is a matter of course that we should use plutonium and highly-enriched uranium for atomic bombs," the document reportedly said, adding Kim Jong-Il gave subordinates "a concrete task to produce a massive amount of nuclear weapons".
It is for the first time that the late leader’s order for the development of nuclear bombs has come into light in a document from the North.
Kim Jong il died in December.
