North Korea Lashes Out At South Over Blast "lies"

SEOUL, Sept 13 (AFP) - North Korea accused the South of spreading lies over the huge blast on its territory last week, saying Seoul fostered rumours of a nuclear weapons test to divert attention from its own atomic revelations.
Pyongyang, in its first public comment on the incident, accused its southern neighbour of a "preposterous smear campaign".
"There has been no such accident as explosion in the DPRK (North Korea) recently," said the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
"Probably, plot-breeders might tell such a sheer lie, taken aback by blastings at construction sites of hydro-power stations in the north of Korea."
North Korean officials have explained the explosion near the Chinese border on Thursday as part of preparations for a hydro-electric power project and have invited foreign diplomats to the site.
South Korean media were the first to report the blast, describing a huge "mushroom cloud" over the area which prompted speculation of a nuclear explosion.
"The story about the explosion is nothing but a sheer fabrication intended to divert elsewhere the world public attention focused on the nuclear-related issue of South Korea for which they are now finding themselves in a dire fix," KCNA said.
South Korea was recently forced to admit that its scientists carried out experiments to produce small amounts of enriched uranium and plutonium, both key ingredients in nuclear bombs.
North Korea has courted controversy over its alleged nuclear weapons programme, withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and re-starting its plutonium programme.