North Korea Describes Provocation - NYTimes.com SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Saturday that although it had no current plans to conduct a nuclear test, South Korea was trying to provoke it into conducting one and taking other retaliatory actions, like an artillery attack. North Korea has detonated nuclear devices twice since 2006, as well as shelling the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong in 2010. It blames South Korea and the United States for those actions, accusing them of raising tensions and forcing the North to retaliate. The government of President Lee Myung-bak in South Korea "seeks to rattle the nerves" of the North "in a bid to cause it to conduct a nuclear test, though such a thing is not under plan at present, and take such strong retaliatory measures as a Yeonpyeong Island shelling incident, and hype its "belligerent nature," " said the Foreign Ministry of North Korea in a statement carried by its official Korean Central News Agency. This scenario is aimed to strain the relations between the D.P.R.K. and the countries around it and create an atmosphere of putting pressure and sanctions on it. D.P.R.K. is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. There was no immediate reaction from South Korea. It was unclear whether the North's complaint was an attempt to build an excuse for a future nuclear test or an overture aimed at drawing the United States back to the negotiating table by suggesting that it had no plans to test a nuclear weapon but might in the future. Recent satellite imagery showed heightened activities in the North's nuclear test site, as well as stepped-up building for a new satellite-launching facility. Separately, North Korea has also begun building a new nuclear reactor that analysts say is part of the country's efforts to secure fuel for nuclear bombs. Analysts have speculated that North Korea will conduct a nuclear test in an effort to reassert its leverage over Washington and make up for the loss of face it suffered when it failed to put a satellite into orbit in April.