Tokyo ? North Korea said Thursday it would restart work at three abandoned nuclear power plants that could produce fuel for atomic bombs, reviving the threat that brought the United States to the brink of war against the government in 1994.

The announcement brought alarm from capitals in the region and Washington. Japan’s prime minister called for calm, and the South Korean government convened its security chiefs for what it said was a looming “crisis on the Korean peninsula.”

Pyongyang’s announcement said its move was a reaction to the decision by the United States to suspend fuel oil deliveries made to North Korea under the 1994 agreement that had frozen North Korea’s nuclear plants.

Many experts had predicted an escalation in the standoff by Pyongyang in answer to the Bush administration’s decision, but this move was more drastic than most had anticipated. It came on the heels of the U.S.-backed interception of a North Korean ship carrying about 15 Scud missiles, Pyongyang’s chief legal export, to Yemen.

In a statement today, the North Korean Central News Agency said the seizure was “an unpardonable piracy that wantonly encroached upon the sovereignty” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Bush administration, which has been eager to avoid a crisis in North Korea that would interfere with its plans for war in Iraq, reacted cautiously to Thursday’s announcement.

“The statement that North Korea made … is regrettable,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. “The announcement flies in the face of international consensus that the North Korean regime must fulfill all its commitments, in particular dismantle its nuclear weapons program.”

North Korea did not say it would begin work to produce a nuclear bomb, referring only to resuming electricity production at the nuclear plants. And it did not threaten to unseal 8,000 spent plutonium rods now in canisters being watched by international inspectors in North Korea, which would give the dictatorial regime immediate access to the core ingredient needed for an atomic bomb.

Response expected

The moves were “short of the worst-case scenario,” but evicting the nuclear inspectors would be “the logical next step,” said C. Kenneth Quinones, who helped set up the inspection program in North Korea in 1994. He said the moves indicate Pyongyang is abandoning the 1994 nuclear agreement.

“The Bush administration now may feel it has got to respond with drastic action,” Quinones said by phone from Centreville, Va. “I think we are at a crisis now.”

The White House announced it would cut off funding for fuel deliveries to North Korea this month after it said North Korea admitted in October to having bought equipment to make enriched uranium for a bomb.

U.S. intelligence estimates say North Korea probably has enough plutonium for one or two small bombs. But until October, Pyongyang had insisted it had stopped working to make nuclear material. There is no public evidence that North Korea has been able to make a functioning bomb, which requires a sophisticated triggering device, and it has not conducted a nuclear test.

Region’s leaders react

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged the world to “respond calmly” to the North Korean announcement. And he offered a positive assessment of Pyongyang’s move.

“If you read the North Korean announcement carefully, their consistent stance is to seek a peaceful resolution,” Koizumi told reporters in Tokyo.

Other views were less optimistic. Both major candidates for next Thursday’s presidential election in South Korea expressed alarm and demanded that North Korea retract its threat.

“This is a nuclear crisis,” Jeon Jae Wook, a chief foreign affairs aid to conservative presidential candidate Lee Hoi Chang. “South Koreans have every reason to be worried about this.”

“This is a war of words, threats, and brinksmanship,” said Lee Jung Hoon, an analyst at Yonsei University in Seoul. “I think we’ll see an even stronger warning from the United States, and then the ball will be back in North Korea’s court in no time.”

Shades of 1994?

Eight years ago, North Korea had a small, 5 megawatt nuclear power generating plant at Yongbyon, about 25 miles north of Pyongyang. Nearby, it was building two much larger ones ” 50 megawatt and 200 megawatts. All used Soviet designs and equipment.

When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded in 1993 that North Korea may have diverted fuel for reprocessing, the regime announced it would withdraw from the IAEA and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Their announcement produced a crisis that, according to accounts of White House insiders, came close to military confrontation in 1994.

War was averted by a deal negotiated by former President Jimmy Carter, in which North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear plant, stop construction work on the two larger facilities, and keep IAEA inspectors there. In return, the United States, Japan, South Korea and later the European Union agreed to build two light water reactor nuclear plants, from which weapons’ grade nuclear fuel is hard to extract. And until the new plants are finished, the United States was to ship North Korea 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil each year.

In its statement Thursday from the Foreign Ministry, North Korea said it was “compelled” to “immediately resume the operation and construction of its nuclear facilities to generate electricity” because of the U.S. fuel cutoff.