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Seoul, South Korea: North Korea said Tuesday that it would put all its nuclear facilities - including its
operational uranium-enrichment program and its
reactors mothballed or under construction - to use
in expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal, sharply
raising the stakes in the standoff with the United
States and its allies. The announcement by the North's General
Department of Atomic Energy came two days after
the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, said his nuclear
weapons were not a bargaining chip and called
for expanding his country's nuclear arsenal in
"quality and quantity" during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of
Korea. The decision will affect the role of the North's
uranium-enrichment plant in the North's main
nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of the capital,
Pyongyang, a spokesman for the nuclear
department told the Korean Central News Agency.
This was the first time that North Korea said that it would use the facility to make nuclear weapons.
Since first unveiling it to a visiting US scholar in
2010, North Korea had insisted that it was running
the plant to make reactor fuel to generate
electricity, although Washington suggested its
purpose was to make bombs. Saying "we will act on this without delay," the
spokesman also said that North Korea will restart
its mothballed nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. The
five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor had
been the main source of plutonium bomb fuel for
North Korea until it was shut down under a short- lived nuclear disarmament deal with Washington
in 2007. North Korean engineers were believed to
have extracted enough plutonium for six to eight
bombs - including the devices detonated in 2006
and 2009 in underground nuclear tests - from the
spent fuel unloaded from the reactor. It is unknown whether North Korea's third nuclear
test in February used some of its limited stockpile
of plutonium or used fuel from its uranium-
enrichment program, whose scale and history
remain a mystery. A restarting of the reactor and weapons-
producing role for its uranium-enrichment plant
would add to growing US concern over the
North's nuclear weapons program. The
developments would mean that the North would
now have two sources of fuel for atomic bombs - plutonium and highly enriched uranium - and
could become more strident in demands. In Beijing, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry,
Hong Lei, said that China, the North's main ally, felt
"regretful" about the North's announcement. "We have noticed the statement made by the DPRK
and feel regretful about it," Hong said Tuesday at a
daily briefing to reporters. China urged "all parties
to remain calm and restrained," he said. In Kim's speech before the party meeting, the
script of which was published in the North Korean
newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday, he said
that making the country's possession of self-
defence nuclear weapons "permanent" was
essential to ensuring that the country could focus on rebuilding its economy. "Now that we have become a proud nuclear state,
we have gained a favourable ground from which
we can concentrate all our finance and efforts in
building the economy and improving the people's
lives based on the strong deterrent against war,"
Kim said. "We must now focus all our resources on building an economically strong nation." Moving swiftly upon the party's "new strategic
line," the country's atomic energy department said
that measures were being taken to expand the
North's nuclear deterrent, as well as to build an
indigenous nuclear power industry to resolve the
country's acute electricity shortage. The North's rubber-stamp Parliament, the Supreme People's
Republic, enacted a new law Monday on
"consolidating the position of nuclear weapons
state," official media reported Tuesday. North Korea "shall take practical steps to bolster up
the nuclear deterrence and nuclear retaliatory
strike power both in quality and quantity to cope
with the gravity of the escalating danger of the
hostile forces' aggression and attack," the law said.
It also said North Korea shall cooperate for "nuclear non-proliferation," depending on "the
improvement of relations with hostile nuclear
weapons states." The North's new party line removed any lingering
"ambiguity" over what North Korea might try to
do with its nuclear weapons, said a senior South
Korean government official, who briefed a group
of foreign reporters on President Park Geun-hye's
policy on North Korea on condition that he remain unnamed. "We now know their real intention. The picture is
clear. What we will do is the combined will of the
international community," he said, adding that
Seoul, Washington and their allies must employ "all
means" of pressure on North Korea, including not
only economic sanctions but also investigations into the North's human rights abuses. "They are
depending on nuclear weapons for their survival,
but we must persuade them that there is an
alternative and brinkmanship doesn't work." North Korea demolished the cooling tower of the
old Soviet-era five-megawatt reactor in 2008 to
demonstrate its commitment to the 2007 deal with
Washington. In return, the US State Department
removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors
of terrorism. The deal, however, unravelled over differences in
nuclear inspections between Washington and the
North. And the North has since been making
preparations to restart it as well as building a new
reactor in Yongbyon, though officials here said the
country was still months, if not years, from getting the old, decrepit reactor on line again. More worrisome to them is uranium enrichment.
North Korea publicly acknowledged enriching
uranium in 2009, but US officials had suspected
enrichment activity in the North as early as 2002.
They fear that the enrichment plant unveiled in
2010 may likely be only part of a much bigger, harder-to-detect and more sustainable program to
make nuclear bomb fuel. North Korea is rich in uranium ores. Unlike the
plutonium program, which included a large and
easily spotted nuclear reactor, an enrichment plant
composed of 1,000 centrifuges occupies a 60-
square-meter space, small enough to be hidden in
one of the estimated 8,000 tunnels that North Korea has dug for military purposes across its
mountainous terrain, South Korean military officials
said.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/north-korea-threatens-to-restart-nuclear-reactor-349358
operational uranium-enrichment program and its
reactors mothballed or under construction - to use
in expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal, sharply
raising the stakes in the standoff with the United
States and its allies. The announcement by the North's General
Department of Atomic Energy came two days after
the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, said his nuclear
weapons were not a bargaining chip and called
for expanding his country's nuclear arsenal in
"quality and quantity" during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of
Korea. The decision will affect the role of the North's
uranium-enrichment plant in the North's main
nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of the capital,
Pyongyang, a spokesman for the nuclear
department told the Korean Central News Agency.
This was the first time that North Korea said that it would use the facility to make nuclear weapons.
Since first unveiling it to a visiting US scholar in
2010, North Korea had insisted that it was running
the plant to make reactor fuel to generate
electricity, although Washington suggested its
purpose was to make bombs. Saying "we will act on this without delay," the
spokesman also said that North Korea will restart
its mothballed nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. The
five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor had
been the main source of plutonium bomb fuel for
North Korea until it was shut down under a short- lived nuclear disarmament deal with Washington
in 2007. North Korean engineers were believed to
have extracted enough plutonium for six to eight
bombs - including the devices detonated in 2006
and 2009 in underground nuclear tests - from the
spent fuel unloaded from the reactor. It is unknown whether North Korea's third nuclear
test in February used some of its limited stockpile
of plutonium or used fuel from its uranium-
enrichment program, whose scale and history
remain a mystery. A restarting of the reactor and weapons-
producing role for its uranium-enrichment plant
would add to growing US concern over the
North's nuclear weapons program. The
developments would mean that the North would
now have two sources of fuel for atomic bombs - plutonium and highly enriched uranium - and
could become more strident in demands. In Beijing, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry,
Hong Lei, said that China, the North's main ally, felt
"regretful" about the North's announcement. "We have noticed the statement made by the DPRK
and feel regretful about it," Hong said Tuesday at a
daily briefing to reporters. China urged "all parties
to remain calm and restrained," he said. In Kim's speech before the party meeting, the
script of which was published in the North Korean
newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday, he said
that making the country's possession of self-
defence nuclear weapons "permanent" was
essential to ensuring that the country could focus on rebuilding its economy. "Now that we have become a proud nuclear state,
we have gained a favourable ground from which
we can concentrate all our finance and efforts in
building the economy and improving the people's
lives based on the strong deterrent against war,"
Kim said. "We must now focus all our resources on building an economically strong nation." Moving swiftly upon the party's "new strategic
line," the country's atomic energy department said
that measures were being taken to expand the
North's nuclear deterrent, as well as to build an
indigenous nuclear power industry to resolve the
country's acute electricity shortage. The North's rubber-stamp Parliament, the Supreme People's
Republic, enacted a new law Monday on
"consolidating the position of nuclear weapons
state," official media reported Tuesday. North Korea "shall take practical steps to bolster up
the nuclear deterrence and nuclear retaliatory
strike power both in quality and quantity to cope
with the gravity of the escalating danger of the
hostile forces' aggression and attack," the law said.
It also said North Korea shall cooperate for "nuclear non-proliferation," depending on "the
improvement of relations with hostile nuclear
weapons states." The North's new party line removed any lingering
"ambiguity" over what North Korea might try to
do with its nuclear weapons, said a senior South
Korean government official, who briefed a group
of foreign reporters on President Park Geun-hye's
policy on North Korea on condition that he remain unnamed. "We now know their real intention. The picture is
clear. What we will do is the combined will of the
international community," he said, adding that
Seoul, Washington and their allies must employ "all
means" of pressure on North Korea, including not
only economic sanctions but also investigations into the North's human rights abuses. "They are
depending on nuclear weapons for their survival,
but we must persuade them that there is an
alternative and brinkmanship doesn't work." North Korea demolished the cooling tower of the
old Soviet-era five-megawatt reactor in 2008 to
demonstrate its commitment to the 2007 deal with
Washington. In return, the US State Department
removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors
of terrorism. The deal, however, unravelled over differences in
nuclear inspections between Washington and the
North. And the North has since been making
preparations to restart it as well as building a new
reactor in Yongbyon, though officials here said the
country was still months, if not years, from getting the old, decrepit reactor on line again. More worrisome to them is uranium enrichment.
North Korea publicly acknowledged enriching
uranium in 2009, but US officials had suspected
enrichment activity in the North as early as 2002.
They fear that the enrichment plant unveiled in
2010 may likely be only part of a much bigger, harder-to-detect and more sustainable program to
make nuclear bomb fuel. North Korea is rich in uranium ores. Unlike the
plutonium program, which included a large and
easily spotted nuclear reactor, an enrichment plant
composed of 1,000 centrifuges occupies a 60-
square-meter space, small enough to be hidden in
one of the estimated 8,000 tunnels that North Korea has dug for military purposes across its
mountainous terrain, South Korean military officials
said.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/north-korea-threatens-to-restart-nuclear-reactor-349358
