Global Security Newswire

The pace of North Korean denuclearization has slowed significantly since last fall, a South Korean official told Agence France-Presse today (see GSN, March 16).

"North Korea is slowing down the pace of removing the spent fuel rods from the nuclear power plant as part of disablement," the official said. "It is now removing 15 nuclear fuel rods a week, down from 15 a day last autumn."

Pyongyang in 2007 agreed to dismantle its nuclear sector in exchange for a host of economic, diplomatic and security benefits that included 1 million tons of energy assistance from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The regime is still carrying out the second of three phases of denuclearization, which calls for disabling key facilities at the plutonium-producing Yongbyon complex.

Six-nation nuclear talks stalled again late last year after North Korea said it would not allow the collection of nuclear samples as part of a program to verify the scope of its atomic activities and holdings. The United States said that further energy assistance would require a verification agreement, which apparently led to the North Korean slowdown (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 18).

As many as 100 spent nuclear fuel rods can be safely extracted daily, Kyodo News reported. Roughly 80 percent of the rods have already been placed in a pond next to North Korea's sole operational nuclear reactor (Kyodo News, March 17).