N. Korea appears to have restored plutonium-generating plant: officials

By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Nov. 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has apparently restored its facility used
to produce weapons-grade plutonium at its main nuclear complex that had been
mothballed under a six-nation accord, officials here said Monday.
"The reprocessing factory appears to have been restored to its earlier
conditions," a senior defense official said, citing satellite photos that also
showed a continuous stream of workers in and out of the site in Yongbyon, 90km
north of Pyongyang.
"Activities involving people and vehicles have been consistent for months," the
official said. "I wouldn't be surprised if North Korea has started to reprocess
spent fuel rods."
"Evidence points to the North having put Yongbyon back to work," another official
said, citing electricity has been detected being supplied to the complex on and
off over the past few months.
Fuel rods used inside a nuclear reactor are reprocessed to produce weapons-grade
plutonium. North Korea said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council in September
that its reprocessing activity is "in its final phase and extracted plutonium is
being weaponized."
Both officials declined to be identified because they were speaking on
intelligence matters. They also declined to speak on speculation that the
5-megawatt nuclear reactor and the fuel fabrication plant may also have been
tampered with.
Under a landmark agreement with the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan and Russia in
2007, North Korea allowed the three main facilities in Yongbyon to undergo a
series of disablement steps.
According to Siegfried Hecker, a U.S. expert who had visited the complex, most of
the disablement actions had been carried out until the North expelled outside
monitors in April this year, when it launched a long-range rocket and drew
worldwide condemnation.
Less than a month later, the communist country conducted its second nuclear test,
drawing U.N. sanctions harsher than those imposed after the 2006 explosion.
North Korea has since taken conciliatory gestures toward the outside world,
offering to return to multinational talks and sending a ranking official to the
U.S.
The six-party talks -- designed to provide diplomatic and economic benefits for
denuclearization -- have been stalled since late last year when Washington and
Pyongyang descended into a dispute over methods to verify past nuclear activities
in the North.
North Korea is believed to have manufactured plutonium enough to create at least
six nuclear bombs. It has 8,000 spent fuel rods from which at least two can be
built.
North Korea says it is also working on an uranium enrichment program -- a second
track to developing nuclear weapons -- a claim which the U.S. and South Korea do
not dispute.
North Korea restored its reprocessing equipment within two to three weeks in 2008
when the U.S. administration under President George W. Bush delayed removing the
country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to Hecker.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said last month that North Korea has yet to
show signs that it is willing to roll back its nuclear program, calling its
motive for dialogue "unclear."
samkim@yna.co.kr
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