North Korea’s new reactor raises fears of increased plutonium production
In what would be a new violation of United Nations sanctions, a new reactor at North Korea’s main nuclear complex appears to have come online, giving the country a potential source of additional plutonium for its growing nuclear arsenal. The United Nations nuclear watchdog.
Since mid-October, the International Atomic Energy Agency has detected a strong flow of water from the cooling system of the new light water reactor, or LWR, that North Korea is building in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, says Rafael Grossi. , said the agency’s director general in a statementon Thursday.
“The release of hot water is an indication that the reactor has reached a critical point,” Mr Grossi said. “The LWR, like any nuclear reactor, can produce plutonium in the spent fuel, which can be separated during reprocessing, so this is a cause for concern.”
The observations in Mr. Grossi’s statement are another strong indication that North Korea has accelerated its nuclear weapons program as talks with the United States stall and as the Biden administration deals with other crises around the world, including the wars in the United States. Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.
The North’s new reactor violates UN Security Council resolutions banning its nuclear program and ballistic missile development. But the council failed to impose new sanctions on North Korea after recent ballistic missile tests, which were vetoed by China and Russia.
The Atomic Energy Agency has not had direct access to Yongbyon since North Korea expelled its monitors from the facility in 2009. But the agency, U.S. officials and private think tanks are keeping a close eye on the sprawling complex, using satellite images and other technology.
They report increased activity there since the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, pledged to expand his nuclear arsenal in both “quality and quantity” following the collapse of his direct diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump in 2019.
Yongbyon is home to the Soviet Union’s five-megawatt nuclear reactor, from whose spent fuel the country extracted plutonium to build atomic bombs. The complex also includes a centrifuge plant where the country would enrich uranium for another type of nuclear warhead fuel.
North Korea has built a new and bigger country light water reactor in Yongbyon since 2010. The analysts have been closely watching the construction progress because of the reactor’s potential to yield plutonium.
The new light water reactor was probably put into operation at the beginning of October. according to an online post on Thursday by Jeffrey Lewis and David Schmerler, researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
North Korea’s plans to boost its supply of nuclear weapons fuel include adding more centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for weapons and starting up the light water reactor at Yongbyon, which is years behind schedule, said the Washington-based paper’s David Albright established Institute for Science. and international security.
The new reactor “could enable an increase in plutonium quantities” at an estimated rate of 20 kilograms of plutonium per year, a rate four to five times that of Mr. Albright’s old five-megawatt reactor. wrote in April.
In recent decades, North Korea has halted and resumed activities in Yongbyon, the home of its nuclear weapons program, depending on progress in talks with Washington. Successive US administrations have tried but failed to close the complex completely.
During his negotiations with Mr Trump in 2019, Mr Kim offered to dismantle the Yongbyon complex and demanded in return that the United States lift United Nations sanctions imposed since 2016, including a ban on crucial exports such as coal, iron ore, fish and textiles. The talks collapsed when Trump rejected the offer and demanded a much broader rollback of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including its nuclear warheads and long-range missiles.
After the collapse of those talks, the IAEA reported that North Korea appeared to have restarted its five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon, and had also resumed extraction of plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel. The country has also stepped up its missile tests, including the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Monday.
North Korea has conducted six underground nuclear tests since 2006. Activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site indicates the country could resume nuclear weapons testing whenever Kim wants, South Korean officials say.