North Korea on Saturday announced it would begin enriching uranium, turn all the plutonium it has extracted so far into nuclear weapons, and take military action should it face a blockade. The announcement came just 15 hours after the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1874, which contains tougher and very specific sanctions against the North as a punishment for its second nuclear test. Resolution 1874 encompasses an export bans on weapons, financial restrictions and the right to search North Korean vessels.

Among the points made in North Korea's latest announcement, the most interesting is its vow to begin enriching uranium. Nuclear weapons can be produced with highly enriched uranium or processed plutonium. If North Korea is able to produce nuclear bombs with uranium, then it has all available means of making nuclear weapons. Moreover, uranium enrichment is much harder to detect than extracting plutonium. It could become more difficult to find a solution to the North Korean nuclear impasse.

In the statement, North Korea said its development of uranium enrichment technology had been successful and was ready for trials.

North Korea has actually been developing uranium enrichment technology for the last 20 years. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, "the father of Pakistan's nuclear program" who was arrested in 2004 on charges of leaking such technology, said he had handed over related equipment, blueprints and technology to North Korea since 1991 and had trained North Korean scientists. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf wrote in his autobiography that Khan gave North Korea around 20 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, including the P-1 model and the improved P-2 model. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton in his memoirs said he learned after his term ended that North Korea had violated the Geneva Conventions by producing enough highly enriched uranium for two nuclear warheads in 1998.

Despite the gravity of the situation, some officials in the Roh Moo-hyun administration claimed that suspicions of North Korea's uranium enrichment program were false claims being made by the U.S. government. They labeled them "distortions and fabrications." They also claimed that North Korea would give up its nuclear ambitions if offered a proper rewards, since North had no desire to possess nuclear weapons. Such misreadings of North Korea are among the main reasons that the nuclear problem came to this pass. Who knows how they will try to justify them?

President Lee Myung-bak, who embarks on a visit to the United States on Monday, apparently wants to propose five-party nuclear dialogue that excludes North Korea. But as long as China continues to put more emphasis on maintaining the North Korean regime rather than on getting rid of its nuclear weapons program, no UN resolution or five-party dialogue would be effective. South Korea faces a tough diplomatic task.

It is becoming clearer that North Korea has no intention of giving up its nuclear program, while the chances are rising that it may resort to military action. Such frightening prospects dwarf any domestic matter for South Korea. The ruling and opposition parties must put aside their differences and come together to face this challenge.