North Korea has several nuclear facilities with the potential to produce nuclear fuel for weapons. Most are located at Yongbyon, 100 km north of Pyongyang, which has an estimated staff of 2000. The major installations include a 5 megawatt electric research reactor, a larger 50 megawatt reactor that was under construction in Yongbyon, and a plutonium reprocessing facility. Yongbyon is also the site of the Radiochemical Laboratory of the Institute of Radiochemistry, the Nuclear Fuel Rod Fabrication Plant, and a storage facility for fuel rods.

History

Under the cooperation agreement concluded between the Soviet Union and North Korea in 1965 a Soviet IRT-2M research reactor was assembled for this center. From 1965 through 1973 fuel elements enriched to 10 percent were supplied to the DPRK for this reactor. In 1974 Korean specialists independently modernized this reactor bringing its capacity up to eight megawatts and switching to fuel enriched to 80 percent.

Since nuclear development began in the 1980s, the College of Physics and Technical College of Physics were set up at Yongbyon to train specialists necessary for the operation of nuclear facilities like the atomic reactor at Yongbyon, the nuclear fuel re-processing plant and nuclear fuel manufacturing plant.

Testings

In March 1986, satellite images of Yongbyon depicted small craters in the sand near a river bank, apparently from experimental high-explosive detonations. At that time a study earlier imagery showed similar craters in the same area since 1983. In June 1988, satellite images reportedly indicated craters at a detonation test site used to develop high explosive implosion techniques for nuclear weapons located near the Kuryong River. By 1991, South Korean sources estimated that North Korea had conducted approximately 70 explosions at a test site located along the banks of the Kuryong.

The controversy to date

In early December 2002, North Korea received a shipment of 20 metric tons of the specialty chemical tributyl phosphate from a Chinese company in Dalian. The chemical shipment coincided with the announcement by Pyongyang that it would restart its nuclear reactors in Yongbyon, and the TBP could be used to extract material for nuclear bombs from North Korea's stockpile of spent nuclear-reactor fuel.

By the end of 2002, North Korea said it was lifting the freeze on facilities frozen under the agreed framework between the United States and North Korea, including a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Furthermore, North Korea asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to remove its cameras from the Yongbyon facility. North Korea defied world opinion on December 21, 2002, by removing United Nations seals and cameras at a nuclear power plant suspected of making weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea tampered with surveillance devices the UN nuclear watchdog installed at the Yongbyong complex. The agency said North Korea cut most of the seals on equipment and tampered with cameras at the five megawatt reactors. North Korea says the agency did not respond to Pyongyang's requests that it remove the equipment. The IAEA said it was trying to keep communications open with Pyongyang. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said it was deplorable North Korea had ignored requests for talks.

Nuclear threat

U.S. Seantor Joe Biden said he believed North Korea's restarting of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor poses a greater threat than Iraq. He said within months Pyongyang could have had enough material for five more nuclear weapons. The incoming chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Senator Richard G. Lugar, said the U.S. government must actively engage its allies (especially Japan) in the region.

During a visit to Yongbyon on January 8, 2004, North Korea showed an unofficial American delegation what it asserted was weapons-grade plutonium. The group spent about a day at Yongbyon, and was shown the empty cooling pond where the 8000 fuel rods from the five megawatt nuclear reactor had been stored. During the visit, the reprocessing plant was operating.

See also

• North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
• List of nuclear reactors

External links

• BBC article - US uncertain over Korean nuclear capability