UN inspectors satisfied with North Korean reactor visit
UN nuclear monitors today said they were able to see all that they wanted on their visit to the plutonium-producing reactor that North Korea has pledged to shut down in return for aid.
The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency returned to the North Korean capital from a two-day trip to the Yongbyon nuclear complex, saying the facilities were still operating, but that the monitors were satisfied with the visit.
“We visited all the places which we were planning to,” IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen said, adding that “the co-operation was excellent and now we continue the meetings still in Pyongyang now”.
It was the first IAEA visit to the facility since UN monitors were expelled from the country in 2002, and was an indication that North Korea may soon fulfil its long-delayed pledge to shut the facility.
However, Heinonen did not indicate a timeline for the closure.
“It’s not yet the point of shutdown so that is still to come,” he said.
Heinonen said that in addition to Yongbyon’s key 5-megawatt reactor, his team also saw a 50-megawatt one under construction, the fuel fabrication plant and reprocessing plant.
The 5-megawatt reactor, believed capable of churning out enough plutonium for one atomic bomb a year, is at the centre of international efforts to halt North Korea’s nuclear programme. North Korea mounted its first atomic test explosion last October.
The IAEA’s five-day trip to North Korea is aimed at discussing details of how to verify that Pyongyang shuts down the reactor as promised in a February accord following six-party talks with the US, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
Movement was delayed for months by a recently resolved financial dispute between North Korea and the United States.
Heinonen had said that the two-day trip to Yongbyon – the first IAEA visit there since UN monitors were expelled from North Korea in 2002 – could give a better indication of when North Korea would shut the reactor down.
