The reports on Thursday, citing an unnamed "high-ranking source" at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, said the announcement would be made on September 9.
Sept. 9 is a national holiday in the communist state, marking the anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1948.
Earlier this month, a Japan-based North Korean political analyst widely described as an "unofficial spokesman" for Pyongyang predicted in an interview with CNSNews.com that the North would soon publicly declare itself to be a nuclear power.
The state-owned Russian Information Agency Novosti said the IAEA official claimed to have got his information from diplomatic sources.
Pyongyang planned to announce it was joining the nuclear club notwithstanding recent attempts by the United States to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program, RIA Novosti quoted the source as saying.
A spokeswoman for the IAEA said early Friday the agency was puzzled by the report.
"This a mystery to us," Melissa Fleming said by phone from the Austrian capital. "We cannot figure out who might have said this and why. It's certainly not official information from the IAEA, and actually we were kind of surprised by it, to be honest."
Fleming said she had spoken to all of the top North Korean specialists at the agency, and they had "no idea where this came from."
A follow-up report from RIA Novosti quoted the head of Moscow's Institute of Strategic Studies, Alexander Konovalov, as saying there would be "critical consequences worldwide" if Pyongyang went ahead with the announcement.
Confirmation of a North Korean nuclear arsenal would prompt Japan to go the nuclear route too, he predicted.
"That will drastically change the arrangement of forces not only throughout Asia but in the whole world, and will certainly have an impact on Russia's national interests," the report said.
Konovalov also said he did not rule out the prospect that the U.S. could launch a "preventive strike" against North Korean nuclear facilities.
Other Russian news reports in recent days have quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov as saying Russia was taking steps to protect itself from the possible use of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.
"Testing of the civil defense resources has been already started in Russia's Far East, in the districts bordering North Korea," reported Pravda Online.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, an independent daily, reported that military exercises were being scheduled for those areas in mid-August.
'Most immediate and serious threat'
Since the nuclear standoff began last October, Pyongyang has taken a series of steps analysts say are aimed to incrementally ratchet up the pressure on the U.S., forcing the Bush Administration eventually to deliver security guarantees as well as economic aid.
Kim Jong-il's regime reportedly admitted the existence of nuclear weapons during talks with American diplomats in Beijing last April. It has also in recent months referred to a "nuclear deterrent" in state-run media broadcasts.
But until now it has stopped short of a public announcement declaring itself a nuclear power.
In an interview on July 15, North Korean analyst Kim Myong-chol said he would not be surprised if Pyongyang declared itself a nuclear power soon, if the U.S. refused to agree to its demand for a non-aggression pact.
Kim claims to be close to the ruling elite in Pyongyang and says his views reflect its thinking.
He correctly predicted more than a year ago that the North would stop cooperating with the IAEA and restart a nuclear reactor it agreed to freeze under a 1994 deal with the U.S.
In a statement last Friday, IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei said that in his view, North Korea was "currently the most immediate and most serious threat to the nuclear non-proliferation regime."
ElBaradei said it was "regrettable that little concrete progress on the issue appears to have been made since December," when North Korea kicked out IAEA inspectors from its nuclear facility ahead of restarting the reactor.
The North subsequently withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The IAEA reported Pyongyang to the U.N. Security Council last February, saying it was in "chronic non-compliance" with its international non-proliferation obligations.
The Security Council eventually took up the issue in April, but American attempts - then and subsequently - to have the body condemn North Korea have been blocked by permanent members China and Russia, Pyongyang's closest allies.
IAEA spokeswoman Fleming said Friday the agency had no further talks on the North Korean situation currently planned.
"We sent the whole issue to the Security Council, so that's where any kind of political discussion or policy discussion is taking place. We're just, on the technical side, prepared for any kind of deal which would bring back our inspection mission."
This week it was reported that recent Chinese diplomacy may have paved the way for a new round of talks between American, North Korean and Chinese officials.
Meanwhile, in a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency Thursday ahead of the 50th anniversary Sunday of the truce that ended the Korean War, the government said that half a century later, "durable peace has not yet settled on the Korean peninsula" and "the danger of a nuclear war is increasing."
"This is entirely attributable to the U.S. military presence in South Korea and its anachronistic hostile policy toward the DPRK," it said.
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