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North Korea: Reprocessing Plant Could Restart on “Short Notice” Following news accounts yesterday that North Korea has restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, U.S. officials said yesterday that Pyongyang has reactivated a steam plant linked to North Korea’s nuclear spent-fuel reprocessing facility, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 27). “They could start (reprocessing) on fairly short notice, but they haven’t yet,” said an official. “There also seems to be some effort to make sure they have the necessary chemicals in stock for reprocessing,” according to the official. “There have been railroad cars full of chemicals arriving at Yongbyon,” the official added (Paul Eckert, Reuters, Feb. 28). The International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday strongly criticized the restarting of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. “If this is true, the IAEA deplores the operation of the D.P.R.K.’s nuclear facilities without the presence of safeguards inspectors,” a statement from the IAEA said. “Restarting this now-unsafeguarded nuclear facility will further demonstrate the D.P.R.K.’s disregard for its nuclear nonproliferation obligations,” the statement added. Without inspectors at the plant, the agency cannot confirm the restarted nuclear facility, but the IAEA said it still considers Pyongyang’s safeguards agreement to be “binding and in force” (U.N. release, Feb. 27). U.S. officials said the reactor’s restart is clearly intended to produce nuclear weapon material. “The only reason to operate a reactor like this is to produce spent fuel that can then be turned into plutonium for weapons,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday (Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Arizona Daily Sun, Feb. 28). U.N. Envoy Scheduled to Visit Pyongyang Maurice Strong, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s envoy, said he would bring ideas to Pyongyang in an attempt to resolve the standoff. “I will present some ideas to [the] North Koreans in my facilitating role and will help them (North Korea and the United States) find a formula in which they can move toward peace,” Strong said. The envoy pushed for negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. “As long as they are not engaging, there are always possibilities that the situation could lead to renewed conflict on the peninsula. And the danger will increase as long as the parties are not engaged,” he added (Seo Hyun-jin, Korea Herald, Feb. 28).
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