SEOUL - NORTH Korea has restarted its plant that extracts bomb-grade plutonium, making good on a threat it delivered a month ago to resume operations at the ageing facility, a South Korean newspaper said on Wednesday.

North Korea said in April it had restarted the plutonium separation complex at its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant, which was being taken apart under a six-way disarmament-for-aid deal. There had been no signs yet that work had resumed there.

'There are various indications that reprocessing facilities in Yongbyon resumed operation that have been detected by US surveillance satellites, and these include steam coming out of the facility,' the country's largest newspaper Chosun Ilbo quoted an unnamed government source as saying.

Officials could not immediately comment on the report. -- REUTERS