NKorea extracted 30.8 kg of plutonium: report

EOUL: North Korea has told China, chair of six-party disarmament talks, it had extracted a total of 30.8 kilograms (68 pounds) of plutonium from its Yongbyon nuclear complex, a report said Friday.

A newspaper quoted an unidentified diplomatic source as saying that the North made the disclosure when it submitted a report on its nuclear facilities and fissile materials to China in June.

Of the 30.8 kilos of plutonium, it used two kilos for its first nuclear test in October 2006 and the rest for "developing nuclear weapons," the daily said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan told the National Assembly on Wednesday that the communist state might have produced between six and eight nuclear weapons, calling the number an "estimate."

North Korea this month broadly resumed disabling its weapons-grade nuclear programme following a deal that revived the troubled six-party negotiations, US officials said.