The North Korea, at the centre of a crisis over an attack on the South, said Monday it has "cutting-edge" nuclear fusion technology — claiming a breakthrough in a field that has defied the world's scientific community.

Nuclear fusion — where atoms are not split, as in fission, but joined together to release energy — occurs in stars and hydrogen bombs. The scientists hope to harness it in a controlled way to produce limitless clean energy.

Pyongyang is "running on the frontline of technologies" in nuclear fusion, bio-engineering and nano-technology, said the Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party's newspaper, in an editorial carried by the official news agency.

"Nuclear fusion technology that has gripped the attention of the world, biological engineering and nano-technologies are being actively developed," said the daily from the impoverished and isolated country.

Last week Pyongyang stunned the world with an artillery attack that killed four people and wounded 18 on a South Korean border island, its first shelling of a civilian area in the South since the 1950-53 war.

Earlier this month North Korea unveiled a modern uranium reprocessing plant to a visiting US nuclear scientist, fuelling fears it could build up its stockpile of nuclear materials that can be weaponised.

It is already thought to have enough plutonium for six to eight small bombs.

The regime first claimed in May it had carried out a nuclear fusion reaction, a process that the international atomic energy agency calls "a great challenge".

South Korea, the United States, European Union, Japan, China, India and Russia are partners in the International thermonuclear experimental reactor project that aims to build a fusion power plant by the mid-2030s.

North Korea walked out of six-nation aid-for-nuclear disarmament talks with the South, Japan, Russia, China and the United States and staged a second atomic weapons test in 2009.

SEOUL, Nov 29, 2010 (AFP) - North Korea, at the centre of a crisis over an attack on the South, said Monday it has "cutting-edge" nuclear fusion technology — claiming a breakthrough in a field that has defied the world's scientific community.

Nuclear fusion — where atoms are not split, as in fission, but joined together to release energy — occurs in stars and hydrogen bombs. The scientists hope to harness it in a controlled way to produce limitless clean energy.

Pyongyang is "running on the frontline of technologies" in nuclear fusion, bio-engineering and nano-technology, said the Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party's newspaper, in an editorial carried by the official news agency.

"Nuclear fusion technology that has gripped the attention of the world, biological engineering and nano-technologies are being actively developed," said the daily from the impoverished and isolated country.

Last week Pyongyang stunned the world with an artillery attack that killed four people and wounded 18 on a South Korean border island, its first shelling of a civilian area in the South since the 1950-53 war.

Earlier this month North Korea unveiled a modern uranium reprocessing plant to a visiting US nuclear scientist, fuelling fears it could build up its stockpile of nuclear materials that can be weaponised.

It is already thought to have enough plutonium for six to eight small bombs.

The regime first claimed in May it had carried out a nuclear fusion reaction, a process that the international atomic energy agency calls "a great challenge".

South Korea, the United States, European Union, Japan, China, India and Russia are partners in the International thermonuclear experimental reactor project that aims to build a fusion power plant by the mid-2030s.

North Korea walked out of six-nation aid-for-nuclear disarmament talks with the South, Japan, Russia, China and the United States and staged a second atomic weapons test in 2009.