• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

NK Claims 5-Megawatt Reactor Back Online

2003-10-04

North Korea said on Friday (Oct. 3) that its 5-megawatt reactor in Yeongbyeon nuclear complex is fully operational and it is ready to extract plutonium from newly irradiated fuel rods.

The North's Korean Central News Agency reported that all the country's nuclear facilities, including the test reactor at Yeongbyeon, are back to normal operations.

"Reprocessing of the 8,000 irradiated fuel rods that had been sealed was successfully completed by the end of June," it reported, echoing a similar statement Thursday by the North's Foreign Ministry.

All the technical problems raised in "switching the use of plutonium" _ a tacit reference to the production of nuclear warheads _ have been resolved, it added.

Additional fuel rods from the 5-megawatt reactor can readily be reprocessed at a radiochemical laboratory as needed, the report went on to say.

North Korea started operating the reactor at Yeongbyeon in February.

Intelligence sources said Seoul and Washington exchanged assessments that the plant would yielded 5-6 kilograms of plutonium.

"Technological advancements make it possible to produce one nuclear warhead with only with some 5 kilograms" instead of the 7 kilograms of plutonium previously needed, an official said.

However, both U.S. and South Korean officials gave little credibility to Pyongyang's claim that it has completed reprocessing all 8,000 fuel rods.

"It's a process that takes months and that could not have avoided detection by United States and South Korean intelligence," said a Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official in Seoul.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said his country will continue to work with South Korea, Japan and China to try to find a way to convince North Korea that it must give up its nukes.

"We are examining ways in cooperation with our colleagues in the area to provide the kinds of security assurances that might help move the process further along," he said.

Referring to Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry statement in Washington Thursday, Powell said it is the third time North Korea has told the U.S. they have finished reprocessing the rods.

"We have no evidence to confirm that. So they say once again that they've reprocessed the rods," he added.

Source : www.korea.net