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North Korea¡¯s nuclear reactor in Yongbyon has been out of operation for about a month, but intelligence officials are sharply divided whether that means the North is implementing a Feb. 13 denuclearization agreement. North Korea missed the April 13 deadline to shut down the reactor under the six-nation agreement due to a delay in the transfer of funds unfrozen in a Macau bank. Since the agreement was reached, the Yongbyon reactor had been out of work for two to four days at a time on three or four occasions.
South Korean and American intelligence analysts are divided in their views on this. Some of them believe that to pressure South Korea, the U.S. and Japan, North Korea is showing off its ability to reprocess spent fuel rods to extract weapons-grade plutonium ? the reactor has to be shut down to extract the fuel rods. Others believe that North Korea has started to implement the Feb. 13 agreement. Government sources on Sunday said Seoul is conducting a precise analysis since the 5 megawatt reactor has not been in operation since early May.
If North Korea has suspended the reactor's operation to extract plutonium, it could throw back the six-party negotiations. According to some experts, North Korea is probably suspending the reactor's operation to pressure South Korea, the U.S. and Japan to keep up their end of the bargain and finally transfer the US$25 million from Banco Delta Asia. Intelligence authorities point out that the reactor, whose operation has been suspended at intervals of a year to two years and six months since 1986, resumed full operation in July 2005. They believe that North Korea may have suspended operation to take out the spent fuel rods to extract plutonium, a raw material for nuclear weapons. However, the reprocessing facility at Yongbyon has shown no signs of operation yet.
The Feb. 13 agreement envisages compensating the North with 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in step with its implementation of the agreement once the reactor has been shut down.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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