Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea’s announcement that it finished a process to extract plutonium used in nuclear weapons represents further violations of United Nations resolutions and its own commitments, the U.S. State Department said.

“They should start taking steps toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington yesterday. “The way forward is to resume the six-party talks and get back to all sides adhering to the commitments that they undertook in 2005.”

North Korea, which threatened Nov. 2 to “go its own way” if the U.S. doesn’t commit to direct talks on its nuclear weapons ambitions, said yesterday it completed reprocessing spent fuel rods.

“Noticeable successes have been made in turning the extracted plutonium weapon-grade,” the country’s official Korean Central News Agency said. North Korea completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods at the end of August at its main Yongbyon complex, KCNA said.

Kim Jong Il’s regime withdrew from multilateral disarmament negotiations in April to protest the UN Security Council’s condemnation of its firing of a long-range missile over Japan. North Korea detonated its second nuclear device in May, less than three years after its first test in 2006.

The country “was compelled to take measures for bolstering up its deterrent for self-defense to cope with the increasing nuclear threat and military provocations of the hostile forces,” KCNA said yesterday.

North Korea said Nov. 2 the U.S. must make a decision on talks between the two countries, a condition set by the regime in Pyongyang to rejoin the multinational negotiations with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

Premier Wen

Last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spent three days in North Korea, where he said the nuclear issue occupied four of the 10 hours of discussions he had with government officials and the country’s leader Kim Jong Il. During that visit, Kim said he would be willing to return to six-party talks, depending on the outcome of direct negotiations with the U.S.

President Barack Obama’s administration responded by saying it was willing to hold bilateral negotiations that lead North Korea to “complete denuclearization.”

Kelly reconfirmed that the U.S. is willing to have such discussions “within the context of the six-party talks.”

“It’s just that we still have not decided on when and where we will have these bilateral talks,” Kelly said.

Last week, North Korean nuclear negotiator Ri Gun held talks with American counterpart Sung Kim in the U.S.

The U.S. and North Korea need to clear their “hostile relationship” before any meaningful progress can be made in the six-party talks, KCNA said Nov. 2.

To contact the reporters on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net; Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 3, 2009 19:23 EST