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Gov't Confirms Smoke at NK Nuclear Plant

2003-05-09

South Korea has detected smoke billowing out of the Yeongbyeon nuclear complex in North Korea but has yet to conclude whether this means the North is reprocessing spent fuel rods to make nuclear weapons, government officials said on Thursday (May 8).

"At this point, it is difficult to conclude that North Korea has started running the reprocessing facilities," presidential spokesman Yoon Ta-young said. "We detected such signs at the end of April, but no additional activities or special movement has been confirmed yet."

South Korea and the United States have closely cooperated intelligence-wise on the radiological and chemical laboratories in Yeongbyeon and will continue to keep tabs on the matter, he added.

U.S. officials said Tuesday there have been increasing signs over the last couple of days that North Korea had begun reprocessing 8,000 irradiated fuel rods at Yeongbyeon, according to the Washington Post on Thursday (May 8).

Other South Korean officials said the information _ presumably from U.S. intelligence satellites _ was shared between Seoul and Washington but seemed more like a threatening maneuver by Pyongyang than a genuine start of reprocessing fuel rods.

"Other signs needed to confirm that the North is reprocessing, such as traces of the chemical emitted during the process, have not been detected," a senior government official said on condition of anonymity.

The move could be anything from yet another bluff in an attempt to increase its leverage in talks with the U.S., to last-minute preparations to begin the actual reprocessing, he added.

During nuclear talks in Beijing last month, U.S. officials said North Korea claimed it had begun reprocessing its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. They could yield 30-45 kilograms of plutonium for two to five nuclear warheads in less than six months according to South Korean estimates.

However, South Korean and U.S. officials questioned the veracity of the claim afterwards, saying they had obtained no intelligence verifying it.

Source : www.korea.net