The Hindu : N. Korea 'reprocessed' n-fuel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 14, 2003

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International

N. Korea 'reprocessed' n-fuel

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE JULY 13. With North Korea having agreed to enter into an "appropriate dialogue" with Seoul on the nuclear issue, the spotlight shifted today towards the progress that Pyongyang might have made in `reprocessing' the spent nuclear-fuel rods in its possession into weapons-grade plutonium.

Without confirming the North's progress in this connection, the South Korean Government has also not contradicted the report from Washington that Pyongyang is purported to have completed `reprocessing' all the 8,000 spent nuclear-fuel rods at its Yongbyon power complex into plutonium.

A weapons-grade plutonium yield of this order is said to be sufficient for making about two to five atomic bombs. The South Korean Foreign Affairs Ministry said it was against established protocols and practices to confirm "intelligence reports" with such implications as the purported acknowledgment by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or the North).

A Seoul report said that the DPRK's Ambassador to the United Nations, Pak Gil-yon, was reported to have told a U.S. special envoy, Jack Pritchard, in New York last week that Pyongyang had indeed "finished reprocessing all 8,000 fuel rods at its nuclear facility in Yongbyon".

Even as the South Korean authorities have taken note of this `report,' they clarified that "it is not proper for us to comment on a contact between the U.S. and North Korea." The saga of the DPRK's nuclear profile is closely associated with the U.S.' perceptions at any given time.

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