The head of the UN nuclear agency said yesterday he is aware that nuclear experiments South Korea conducted several years ago were small, but said his agency needs to make sure they will not be repeated.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is in South Korea to speak at an international conference on science and world affairs. His visit follows Seoul's recent admissions that it conducted a plutonium-based nuclear experiment more than 20 years ago and a uranium-enrichment experiment in 2000.
The Vienna-based IAEA has expressed concern that Seoul failed to report the unauthorized experiments.
"Any undeclared activity is a matter of serious concern for me," ElBaradei told reporters upon arrival. "However, as far as I know now, these have been small experiments. We just wanted to make sure these were experiments and that there were nothing more than these experiments ... (and that) these experiments will not be repeated again without being declared to the organization."
South Korea says the experiments were purely research, but has acknowledged it should have informed the IAEA.
ElBaradei said he believed a report on Seoul's nuclear activities would be ready for submission to the IAEA's board of governors by next month.
Asked about the possibility of the issue being reported to the UN Security Council, he said such a decision would be "far down the road."
"This is something for the board of governors members to decide," he said. "You cannot speculate on the issue before we have a comprehensive report on these experiments."
During his four-day visit, ElBaradei is expected to meet South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, and Prime Minister Lee Hai-chan.
The IAEA has already sent inspectors here twice, and South Korean officials expect several more visits from the agency.
Plutonium and enriched uranium are two key ingredients of nuclear weapons. The controversy over South Korea's experiments has disrupted efforts to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.
A fourth round of six-country talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs failed to take place last month.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
RSS