Sat, Sep 13, 2003 page5

• N Korea slows processing nuclear rods

  SPENT FUEL RODS US officials said that work at a reprocessing plant at Yongbyon has halted, but that they do not have any idea what could be the reason for the move

  • AP
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  Plutonium reprocessing activity at a key North Korean site has apparently ceased, US officials said.

  It is unclear why the North Koreans stopped work at their reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, the officials said Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

  Presumably, they either chose to stop or had technical problems at the plant. Unless something broke, the plant could be restarted at any time.

  The plant turns spent nuclear fuel rods into plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons. It is the only one North Korea is known to have. At the same site is a nuclear reactor that can make the spent fuel rods.

  Also Thursday, US officials said North Korea appears to be developing a new intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the US. The missile hasn't been tested.

  The North Korean move at its nuclear site in Yongbyon was first reported in Thursday editions of the Los Angeles Times.

  The US officials declined to say precisely when activity at Yongbyon stopped, although other officials had said as recently as last month that low-level reprocessing was under way.

  The North Koreans restarted the reactor in late February. They are also thought to have accessed some 8,000 ready-to-reprocess spent fuel rods that had been in storage.

  Reprocessing work may have begun sometime in the late spring or summer.

  It is unclear whether North Korea could have reprocessed enough spent fuel to make a nuclear weapon. Washington estimates they already have at least one or two.

  Experts had previously estimated that running the plant at full speed could make five or six new nuclear weapons out of the 8,000 rods at the rate of one a month. But officials had previously described the activity at Yongbyon as small in scale.

  The North Koreans claimed they finished reprocessing the rods in April, but Western intelligence officials have expressed doubts.

  The new missile may have a range of 15,125km, a distance within the range of any US state or territory, two US government officials said.

  Until now, the limit of North Korea's missile range was thought by US defense experts to have been Alaska or Hawaii for heavier payloads and the western half of the continental US for lighter payloads.

  Whether Pyongyang could reach US targets with a nuclear warhead is not clear; officials are not certain whether their nuclear weapons are small enough to fit on their missiles.

  Some officials said the new missiles are based on Russia's SS-N-6 "Serb," a Soviet-era, submarine-launched ballistic missile, suggesting cooperation from Russian scientists or other entities, the officials said.

  The US administration has raised the issue with Russian government officials, who indicated surprise and disapproval of the activity, according to the US officials.

  However, other US officials said the North Korean missile may be based on an indigenous design rather than a Russian one.

  North Korea's possession of missiles with a range covering almost half the planet could add a troubling dimension to its dispute with the US over its nuclear weapons program.

  In the absence of a proliferation agreement, the North could cap its missiles with nuclear warheads, leaving US cities vulnerable to attack.
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