Photos Illustrate North Korean Nuclear Disablement

U.S. visitors took photographs showing the progress made to date in disabling nuclear facilities at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex, Kyodo News reported Sunday (see GSN, Feb. 15).

Pyongyang has agreed to disable three key plants, including its sole operating nuclear reactor, as part of the deal for which it is to receive a range of benefits for fully shuttering its nuclear complex.

Pictures taken by nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker and congressional aide Keith Luse last week showed vacant rooms and pits that had once contained nuclear fuel production equipment.  Prior to last week, no photographs had been released of the interiors of the facilities as they underwent disablement.

Work is finished at the nuclear fuel fabrication facility and the spent fuel reprocessing site, but is ongoing at the reactor (Kyodo News/NASDAQ.com, Feb. 17).

The Stalinist state has slowed the pace of work at the reactor due to displeasure with the rate at which it is receiving promised rewards from the other nations in the six-party talks, Hecker said Saturday.

Thirty fuel rods are being removed each day but the limit for safety purposes is 80, the Associated Press reported.  Hecker said he learned that a total of 1,440 of the reactor’s 8,000 rods have been removed.

North Korean officials also said they would not issue a full declaration of the nation’s nuclear programs, which was due Dec. 31, until their nation receives additional energy assistance and is taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, Hecker said.

Regime officials have publicly said they delivered the required list in November.

“They claim that the other five parties have fallen behind in meeting their obligations,” Hecker said, referring to China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.  “They are not prepared to provide a complete list until the other parties meet their obligations under the Oct. 3 agreement.”

Washington, though, has said the declaration must precede additional U.S. aid.

“You have a problem as to who goes first, and I think at this point that is unresolved,” Hecker said (Joe McDonald, Associated Press/ABC News, Feb. 16).

Lead U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said a meeting today with his North Korea counterpart produced no breakthroughs in the stalled denuclearization process, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We had a discussion about what needs to be included in the declaration but we won’t have a complete declaration until we have a complete declaration,” the assistant secretary of state said following his meeting in Beijing with Kim Kye Gwan.  “We discussed ideas that China had made and how things could be moved into substantial discussions.”

Hill’s boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is scheduled to visit China, Japan and South Korea during a trip beginning Saturday.  She is expected to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue with officials in those countries (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Feb. 19).

Meanwhile, South Korea plans to ship another 2,830 metric tons of steel plates to its neighbor this week, AFP reported.  It delivered 5,000 metric tons of steel in December as part of the rewards plan for North Korean denuclearization efforts.  The total aid would exceed 30,000 metric tons.

“Administrative procedures to provide the North with the remaining aid, of energy facilities and materials, are now under way.  The government plans to complete the shipment by the end of June,” the South Korea Unification Ministry said in a statement.

The steel plates are part of a deal to provide Pyongyang with a total of 1 million metric tons of heavy fuel oil or related energy assistance.  Steel would help North Korea renovate aging power facilities (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Feb. 19).

North Korea to date has received 200,000 tons of oil (AFP I, Feb. 19).

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