North Korea invites US Congress to inspect biochemical plant over anthrax allegations

North Korea has sent an open invitation to President Barack Obama to dispatch all the members of the US Congress to the reclusive nation to inspect their biochemical plant following allegations that it produces anthrax for the military.

A government spokesperson of the impoverished country's National Defence Commission has insisted that the facility was producing pesticides and not biochemical weapons.

"A thousand pairs of ears cannot match a pair of eyes," the unnamed spokesperson said, reacting angrily to recent reports.

"Come here right now, with all the 535 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the imbecile secretaries and deputy secretaries of the government who have made their voices hoarse screaming for new sanctions."

"Then they can behold the awe-inspiring sight of the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute," according to the official statement carried by the state mouthpiece Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The spokesperson added that this was yet another ploy by the US government to question the credibility of and "tarnish the sublime image" of North Korea.

Pyongyang's response has come just after the monitoring agency US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University carried a detailed analysis on Pyongyang's purported biological and chemical weapons programme.

Melisa Hanham, who wrote the report, said: "It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the institute is intended to produce military-size batches of anthrax. The bottom line is that regardless of whether the equipment is being used to produce anthrax today, it could in the near future.