Pyongyang: North Korea said it would review the nuclear issue after arresting the country’s defector for allegedly plotting to destroy statues of the late leader Kim II Sung, at the behest of the neighbouring South Korea and the US.

Jon Yong Chol said that South Korean and US intelligence agencies had ordered him to return to the country to blow up statues and monuments, in a bid to make it appear that North Korea was suffering internal unrest, ANI reported.

While South Korea has denied the allegation as groundless, a government official dismissed the idea as an “improbable plot”.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement that by backing the plot, the US had violated a deal with Pyongyang to pull back on its nuclear programme.

“The situation forces us to completely review the nuclear issue,” the Los Angeles Times quoted the ministry, as saying.

A failed North Korean rocket launch earlier this year, widely believed to be a cover for testing its ballistic missile technology, had reportedly spurred fears that the country would turn next to a nuclear test, as it did after unsuccessful launches in 2006 and 2009, the paper said.

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