UNITED NATIONS – North Korea says it has turned the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent against increasing American nuclear threats and to prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia.

Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula “is snowballing,” the vice foreign minister, Choe Su Hon, provided details Monday of the nuclear deterrent that he said North Korea has developed for self-defense.

In Washington, a State Department official said the administration takes Mr. Choe’s claim seriously but added that it is impossible to verify in the absence of independent inspectors at North Korea’s nuclear sites.

The official, asking not to be identified, noted that the administration has said previously that North Korea has enough plutonium for several nuclear bombs.

Mr. Choe told the U.N. General Assembly’s annual ministerial meeting that Pyongyang had “no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent” because of American policies that he claimed were designed to “eliminate” North Korea and make it “a target of preemptive nuclear strikes.”

“Our deterrent is, in all its intents and purposes, the self-defensive means to cope with the ever increasing U.S. nuclear threats and further, prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia,” he told a news conference after his speech.

America has said it has no plans to attack the communist country.

In his General Assembly speech and at the press conference with a small group of reporters, Mr. Choe blamed America for intensifying threats to attack the communist nation and destroying the basis for negotiations to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Nonetheless, he said, North Korea is still ready to dismantle its nuclear program if Washington abandons its “hostile policy” and is prepared to coexist peacefully.

At the moment, however, he said “the ever intensifying U.S. hostile policy and the clandestine nuclear-related experiments recently revealed in South Korea are constituting big stumbling blocks” and make it impossible for North Korea to participate in the continuation of six-nation talks on its nuclear program.

North Korea said earlier this year that it had reprocessed the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and was increasing its “nuclear deterrent” but did not provide any details.

Mr. Choe was asked at the news conference what was included in the nuclear deterrent.

“We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms,” he said, without elaborating on the kinds or numbers.

When asked if the fuel had been turned into actual weapons, not just weapons-grade material, Mr. Choe said, “We declared that we weaponized this.”

The South Korean deputy foreign minister, Lee Soo-hyuck, said in late April that it was estimated that eight nuclear bombs could be made if all 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods were reprocessed. Before the reprocessing, South Korea said it believed the North had enough nuclear material to build one or two nuclear bombs.

The State Department official said he hadn’t seen Mr. Choe’s comments but noted that the Bush administration has long believed that North Korea has at least one or two nuclear weapons.