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North Korea I: Pyongyang Restarts Nuclear Reactor U.S. officials confirmed yesterday that North Korea has restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, as it indicated it would do earlier this month (see GSN, Feb. 6). “North Korea started its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. It had been closed since 1994,” said a U.S. official. “This is certainly less provocative than starting up the reprocessing facility, but it is significant nonetheless,” the official added, referring to an adjoining facility capable of removing weapons-usable plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel (Andrew Buncombe, London Independent, Feb. 27). “We have no evidence the reprocessor has started up yet,” a senior U.S. official told the New York Times (see GSN, Jan. 31). “Either they are stopping just short of that, or they are waiting to turn the screws once again,” the official added (David Sanger, New York Times, Feb. 27). The White House criticized the development. “With each step it takes to advance its nuclear capability, North Korea further isolates itself from the international community,” said White House spokesman Sean McCormack. GlobalSecurity.org, an online think tank, has posted satellite photographs of Yongbyon on its Web site, including two January pictures that show test runs of the coal-fueled plant that powers the nuclear reactor. “They are getting close to the top of the escalation ladder. There’s not much more they can do without provoking a U.S. military strike,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. A strike on the nuclear reactor would not entail serious radiological problems, Pike said, because the spent fuel is not highly radioactive. However, if North Korea reactivated the reprocessing facility and the United States attacked it, the consequences could be much more severe. “If it was bombed, and the fuel in it was dispersed, it could create a mini-Chernobyl, and I underline the word ‘mini’ because Chernobyl was dozens of times larger,” Pike said (John Donnelly, Boston Globe, Feb. 27). The reactor at Yongbyon could turn out enough spent fuel in one year to produce about 13 pounds of plutonium, enough to make a single nuclear weapon, according to experts (Diamond/Nichols, USA Today, Feb. 27). Diplomacy Continues After meeting today in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov issued a joint statement urging a peaceful resolution to the crisis and expressing their support for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. “The two sides pointed out that an equal and constructive dialogue between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will be of great significance to resolving the ‘D.P.R.K.’s nuclear issue’ and realizing the normalization of U.S.-D.P.R.K. relations,” the statement said (Xinhua News Agency/BBC Monitoring, Feb. 27). Expert Says North Korea Threat Overblown The nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs of North Korea are not nearly as sophisticated as often portrayed, therefore there is a window of opportunity to resume talks to halt the programs before they pose a more serious threat to regional stability, a nongovernmental nuclear expert said yesterday in New York. “The reality of the North Korean threat has been greatly exaggerated in certain respects, certainly in terms of their capability to have nuclear weapons, to put them on missiles, to target them and shoot them,” said Robert Alvarez of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. “I think we have reasonable period to time to get back on track. But time’s a wasting,” he said. “Technically speaking,” if North Korea immediately decided to start producing plutonium, “it could probably happen in a period of several months” and “meaningful amounts [could be produced] in about one year,” said Alvarez at a news conference that included satellite photographs of uranium and plutonium plants and missile sites. Referring to the possibility that North Korea might take uranium from its reactor and transfer it to a reprocessing site to produce weapon-grade plutonium, he said, “It’s the crossing of that threshold that really is the important issue … Once you get to that point it’s almost a point of no return.” He said North Korea probably would not take “tangible steps” towards reprocessing, he said, because “they recognize what an important bargaining chip this really is.” However it could happen if “pushing and shoving continues,” said Alvarez. “Then there would be the very real possibility of life with a nuclear-armed, starving North Korea,” he added. Alvarez, who was an adviser on North Korea at the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, said the Bush administration’s policy of isolating the country is not working. “If the United States persists in its heavy handed isolation, the collapse of a heavily armed North Korea will have a very serious impact on political stability in this region and also on the nonproliferation regime,” he said. He said the Agreed Framework of 1994 “should not be terminated. We’re in a situation where the policy of isolation is merely fueling and escalating confrontation.” That agreement involved North Korea halting its nuclear program — which it says is for energy production — in exchange for fuel oil and assistance in building light-water reactors that are more “proliferation resistant.” That agreement is at the point of collapse with both the United States and North Korea accusing the other of violating its provisions. “There is so much animus against the Agreed Framework” that it would be difficult to resurrect it, Alvarez said. The best choice may be to “come up with something else that looks like the Agreed Framework and then go 10 steps backwards … it beats where we’re heading right now.” Alvarez said neither the nuclear weapons nor missile programs are the imminent threat they are often portrayed as being. Both the North’s uranium-powered nuclear reactor and the reprocessing complex that extracts weapon-grade plutonium from uranium fuel rods are based on designs from the 1950s, he said. The North’s short-range missiles are based on Soviet Scuds from the 1980s, said Alvarez. He showed satellite photographs that he said showed the launch sites for the Nodong longer-range missiles are at the end of dirt roads and lack basic infrastructure. Missiles have to be moved to the site in parts, assembled and then fired, he added. He called the Nodong “the poor man’s ballistic missile.” The missile billed as able to reach the western United States might be able to hit “one of the islands off of Alaska, but that’s about it,” he added (Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire, Feb. 27). For further information, see:
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