North Korea announced today that its reopened Yongbyon nuclear complex had produced additional weapon-grade plutonium from reprocessed spent fuel rods, Reuters reported (see GSN, Nov. 2).
(Nov. 3) -
A machining lathe at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility, shown in 2008. Pyongyang today indicated it has produced new weapon-grade material at the site (Sigfried Hecker/Stanford University).
Yongbyon had been shuttered as part of a denuclearization pledge Pyongyang made in negotiations with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. However, the North said it would resume plutonium operations after the six-party process appeared to crumble earlier this year.
"We have finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods as of August. We have made substantial achievements in weaponizing plutonium from the extraction," said the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency.
Today's declaration follows repeated requests by North Korea for bilateral negotiations with the United States. The Obama administration has said it is willing to talk directly with the Stalinist state but only as a prelude to resumption of the nuclear talks.
Analysts have speculated that North Korea's stock of fuel rods could produce enough plutonium for another nuclear weapon. The isolated nation is believed to have held enough material to make between six and eight weapons.
"They (North Korea) are just telling us that they are biding their time and increasing pressure on the United States ahead of bilateral talks," said South Korean academic Yang Moo-jin (Herskovitz/Yoo, Reuters/Washington Post, Nov. 3).
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said that U.N. resolutions prohibit North Korean from reprocessing its fuel rods, Agence France-Presse reported.
"We deeply regret North Korea's repeated activities to defy the international community's concerted demand," said the ministry in a statement.
It is widely thought that Pyongyang is seeking U.S. acknowledgment as a nuclear-armed state. This could be sought in exchange for promises from the North that it would not share or sell its nuclear weapons technology. However, Washington has said there is no possibility that it would ever recognize North Korea as a nuclear power (Lim Chang-won, Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Nov. 3).
The North's People's Army has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars by dealing arms and missiles to nations such as Iran, Pakistan and Syria, the Washington Post reported today.
However, U.N. Security Council sanctions have been able to strangle the country's weapons trade. This has resulted in the North's powerful military assuming control of public trading firms so that it could escalate mineral sales to Beijing.
Substantial proceeds from mineral sales to China have been allocated by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to his country's nuclear program (Blaine Harden, Washington Post, Nov. 3).
A report issued today states that while the North's missile and nuclear tests this year might have frustrated China, they have not been enough to convince it to really lean on Pyongyang in the nuclear standoff, AFP reported.
Beijing, the North's sole remaining major ally, is more preoccupied by the standing of the government in Pyongyang than its atomic intentions and considers its nuclear program to be a matter for the United States to handle, according to the International Crisis Group.
"Together, the nuclear tensions and succession worries drew out an unusually public, and critical, discussion in China about its ties with North Korea," the report says.
It added: "China prioritizes stability over denuclearization due to a vastly different perception than the U.S. and its allies of the threat posed by a nuclear North Korea."
China's chief worries are the potential for an armed conflict between the United States and North Korea, the collapse of Kim's government, massive waves of North Korean refugees seeking entry into China, or the "precipitous reunification" of the two Koreas that would lead to U.S. armed forces being stationed north of the 38th parallel.
Beijing "remains reluctant to tighten the screws on Pyongyang" out of a desire to ease the harm done by sanctions to Kim's government, the report says (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Nov. 3).
Elsewhere, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is dispatching a special envoy to Pyongyang next week with the intention of feeling out whether the North would be willing to exchange promises to end its nuclear program for European foreign aid, the Associated Press reported.
"No questions are forbidden," said French special envoy Jack Lang of his meetings next week with high-level North Korean officials.
As France does not have any diplomatic relationship with North Korea, not much is expected to come out of Lang's first visit to Pyongyang. The stated intention of his trip is to find out whether the two nations are finally ready to set up embassies in the other state.
The Obama administration has not commented on Lang's trip. Last month, Lang traveled to Washington to talk with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and the U.S. special envoy to the halted six-nation talks, Sung Kim (Angela Charlton, Associated Press/Google News, Nov. 3).