South Korea yesterday admitted that its scientists extracted a small amount of plutonium, a key ingredient for making nuclear bombs, in secret research in the early 1980s.
The admission comes just one week after the country made startling revelations that it had conducted unauthorized experiments to enrich uranium, also used to build nuclear weapons.
A government official said a recent visit by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to a South Korean government-run nuclear research center was linked to the previously undisclosed research on plutonium.
"We have been in consultation with the IAEA over the inspection of our nuclear research activity [based on plutonium] in the early 1980s," said the government official.
South Korea admitted last week that the same research center conducted unauthorized tests to enrich uranium four years ago.
The plutonium research was conducted at a now-defunct "TRIGA-type" research reactor at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, at the time located in a northern Seoul suburb, the official said.
"A small number of scientists were engaged in the experiment to analyze the chemical properties of plutonium, but there have been no records on their research or on how much plutonium was extracted," the Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement.
"An investigation showed that a miniscule amount of plutonium was extracted in April and May 1982," the statement added.
The statement said that Seoul filed a report to the IAEA in September 1983, concerning nuclear material that had gone missing. It added that equipment used for the test was later scrapped but is still in the possession of the research institute.
South Korean officials said the experiment did not violate Seoul's commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which seeks to prevent the use of nuclear technology for military purposes.
Seoul last week admitted that its scientists four years ago had carried out an unauthorized experiment at the state-run research center in Daejon, south of Seoul, to enrich uranium. It denied the research was linked to a weapons program.
An IAEA team investigated South Korea's nuclear activities last week and its findings will be discussed at a four-day board meeting of the nuclear watchdog next week.
The clandestine activity embarrassed both the US and its ally South Korea at a time when they are trying through six-party talks to pressure communist North Korea to end its nuclear weapons drive.
South Korean officials insist that the country has no interest in acquiring atomic bombs. Seoul abandoned any such ambitions in the 1970s, they say, after Washington persuaded then-military dictator Park Chung-hee to give up his nuclear weapons program.
However North Korea, res-ponding to the uranium enrichment revelations, said on Wednesday that the South's nuclear activities could trigger an arms race in the region.
"We view South Korea's uranium enrichment program as part of armament race in the Northeast Asian region," Han Song-ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the UN, told the Yonhap News Agency.
"It will be difficult to prevent the spread of armament race in the region due to the South's nuclear experiment," Han said.
The latest revelation comes amid efforts to convene a fourth round of six-nation talks before the end of the month. The talks are aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions.
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