South Korea yesterday confirmed the shutdown of North Korea's nuclear power plant, a signal that Pyongyang could be moving to double its supply of weapons-grade plutonium.
"We are treating this matter very seriously," said Kim Sook, head of the North American affairs bureau at the South Korean foreign ministry. "I learned that the halt to operations [at the plant] has been verified through various means," he said in an interview with a local radio station.
North Korea claimed in 2003 that it had reprocessed spent fuel rods from its five-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon complex, 90km north of the capital Pyongyang.
Experts said reprocessing of the 8,000 rods from the plant produced enough plutonium for six to eight nuclear bombs.
By reprocessing another batch of 8,000 rods, North Korea could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to allow it to double that number.
Selig Harrison, a US expert who visited Pyongyang earlier this month, said that senior North Korean leaders told him the country would start reprocessing the 8,000 spent fuel rods late this month.
The specialist from the Center for International Policy in Washington said the North Koreans were no longer interested in a step-by-step elimination of their nuclear programs in return for rewards.
Instead they would offer to freeze the production of nuclear bombs only if the US promised not to try to topple the communist regime, Harrison was told.
The controversial reactor at Yongbyon was frozen under a 1994 bilateral deal between the US and North Korea under which North Korea agreed to mothball an earlier nuclear program.
Washington believes that North Korea had already diverted enough bomb-grade plutonium at that time for up to two crude nuclear devices.
The 1994 deal collapsed after Washington accused North Korea in October 2002 of running a separate program based on enriched uranium to produce nuclear weapons.
North Korea raised the stakes by reopening the Yongbyon reactor, kicking out international monitors and claiming it possessed reprocessed spent fuel.
It said it would give up its nuclear weapons drive in return for rewards, but Washington refused to offer incentives.
Six-nation talks involving the two Koreas, China, Russia, the US and Japan aimed at ending the North's nuclear arms ambitions have stalled after three inconclusive rounds.
Harrison said Pyongyang appears to have hardened its position further and is not longer ready to bargain away its nuclear weapons and is only offering a freeze.
The development came as the US reportedly prepared to send Christopher Hill, the new assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, to South Korea, Japan and China for talks on the nuclear standoff.
Last week, his boss, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said North Korea was not the top US foreign policy issue.
The US has been trying to use China's influence to rein in North Korea, and Rice said Pyongyang's recent behavior, including its declaration that it had nuclear weapons, was merely a bid for attention.
"I do think the North Koreans have been, frankly, a little bit disappointed that people are not jumping up and down and running around with their hair on fire because [they] have been making these pronouncements," she said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including