North Korea ready to reprocess spent nuclear fuel into plutonium(DOUBLING NUCLEAR ARSENAL)

AFP ^ | 04/17/05

[TigerLikesRooster]

North Korea ready to reprocess spent nuclear fuel into plutonium

Sun Apr 17, 3:06 AM ET

	Asia - AFP

TOKYO (AFP) - North Korea has halted operations at a nuclear power reactor at the center of an international row, a move that could let Pyongyang reprocess spent fuel to retract plutonium and boost its nuclear arsenal, a press report said.

North Korean workers re-paint a propaganda tower near the truce village of Panmunjom. (AFP/File/Jung Yeon-Je)

The United States will shortly send Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, to South Korea, Japan and China for talks to cope with the new development in the nuclear stand-off, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said.

Washington has verified that operations at the five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon were suspended in April, the influential daily said in a report from Washington quoting sources including US government officials.

The US administration reached the conclusion by analysing satellite pictures and estimating temperatures on the walls of nuclear facilities and amounts of steam coming from boilers at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, the report said.

Pyongyang could double its nuclear arsenal if it reprocesses 8,000 spent nuclear rods from the Yongbyon reactor as it has claimed to have done before.

The controversial reactor was frozen under a 1994 deal with a US-led consortium which promised to provide the Stalinist state with reactors which produce much less weapons-grade plutonium and heavy oil.

But the North reactivated the reactor in late 2002 after Washington accused Pyongyang of going ahead with a separate, secret nuclear weapons programme based on highly enriched uranium.

The new nuclear stand-off has led to six-nation talks involving the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan to end the North's nuclear arms ambitions.

Pyongyang has suspended the negotiations, accusing the United States of hostility, and in February declared that it possessed nuclear weapons for self-defense.

Selig Harrison, a senior researcher at the US Center for International Policy, said after visiting Pyongyang earlier this month that North Korean officials suggested they would start reprocessing the spent fuel rods in late April unless the United States promised not to try to topple the regime of Kim Jong-Il.

North Koreans dance as they celebrate the 93rd birthday of their national founder, the late Kim Il-sung, at the Kim Il-sung square in Pyongyang on Friday in this picture released by the Korea News Service on April 16, 2005. JAPAN OUT REUTERS/Korea News Service

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050417/wl_asia_afp/nkoreanuclearus_050417070610

[rodguy911]

If you wanted to get conspiratorial you could suggest that China now has defacto control over N. Korea and they are now shuffling the deck to get the same with S. Korea. But it is a complex situation over there, tough to sort out all the time.

[AmericanInTokyo]

That was the beauty of Reagan's approach. Without a shot (most of the time).

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Defections to China. That's the key to NK.

[SevenofNine]

DOUBLE Plutionim for research or nuke production

OH MAN Chia Pet Kim has lost friggin mind

[thoughtomator]

They don't even know for sure if their nukes actually work or not, do they?

[NJ_gent]

"Defections to China. That's the key to NK."

If China weren't our enemy, I'd agree with you. The fact is, we're not as far as the average person would like to think from being at war with China. This is not all that unlike the Soviets and the western allies coming into Germany at the end of WWII. You're both fighting a common enemy, but at the end of it, you're right back at each others' throats again.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

I don't agree. I think China still has a lot of control over North Korea. China can control them by stopping their aid until they do what they want. Without Chinese aid they cant survive. I think the North Koreans would submit to almost anything China ask of them before losing their only ally. Without China North Korea's regime would fall. I think they would would give into China's demands before they would attack them and get themselves destroyed.

Recently the Chinese have been getting increasingly angry with the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan and I wouldn't doubt that any escalation for us with North Korea would be their doing. North Korea is still China's puppet. Without the Chinese the North Koreans can't survive.

[Finalapproach29er]

The dwarf with the Travolta haircut is calling our bluff.

They know we aren't going to fight them.

[Teplukin]

I agree with Joe. Let's do our best to ensure that President Bush is not blamed for this. He has his hands full with Iraq, and can not be held responsible for what the NK commies eventually do.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

We need to start a complete blockade of North Korea. We don't seem to have any leverage with them. We should just let them do what they want or take a risk and try to stop them. Negotiations aren't going to work. We need to decide our course of action and then do it.

[Finalapproach29er]

Agreed.

A war would be catastrophic for all involved. We aren't willing to pay the price. The leak about the war games sasy something like 100,000 dead in the first week, escalating after that.

We "win" in about a month, but the price is unbearable in the times we live. We'll never confront them at sea and risk a war.IMO

[Always Independent]

The way they swatted the N vietnamese?

[ConservativeMind]

Doubling zero is still nothing.

[taxed2death]

"Is their any reason all for them not to reprocess more uranium,....?

Well, WE should be reprocessing it. Then we can reuse it...and not stick perfectly useful radioactive material in the freaking ground in Yucca Flats!
That's stuff we can use to help break free of OPEC's hold on us.

Thanks Jimmy Carter.