UN agency sends team to probe uranium enrichment in S. Korea
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Sept 5, IRNA -- The United Nations atomic watchdog agency has sent an inspection team to South Korea to investigate the production of a tiny amount of enriched uranium that the government in Seoul claims claims was carried out without its knowledge. If produced in sufficient quantities enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons. According to a UN Information Center press release received on Sunday, the team, headed by the director of the Safeguards Operations Division responsible for the Republic of Korea (ROK), will report to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei on its return to agency headquarters in Vienna early next week. ElBaradei in turn will inform the IAEA Board of Governors of the team`s initial findings at its next meeting on September 13. ROK is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The Seoul government informed the IAEA last month of the production four years ago of just milligram quantities of enriched uranium during vapor laser isotope separation experiments. "According to the Republic of Korea, these activities were carried out without the government`s knowledge at a nuclear site in Korea in 2000, and that the activities had been terminated," the agency said. The Democratic People`s Republic of Korea (DPRK), ROK`s northern neighbor, withdrew from the NPT nearly two years ago and the IAEA has been unable to draw any conclusions about Pyongyang`s nuclear activities since then. ElBaradei has called the DPRK`s withdrawal a dangerous precedent threatening the credibility of the non-proliferation regime. /2321/1432
