North Korea
appeared to resume activities this year aimed at producing plutonium, which can
be used in the core of an atomic bomb, the U.N. nuclear watchdog has confirmed,
though it added that signs of those activities stopped last month.
Pyongyang
vowed in 2013 to restart all nuclear facilities, including the main reactor at
its Yongbyon site that had been shut down and has been at the heart of its
weapons program.
It said last
year that Yongbyon was operating and that it was working to improve the
"quality and quantity" of its nuclear weapons. It has since carried
out what is widely believed to have been its fourth nuclear test.
"From the
first quarter of 2016, there were multiple indications consistent with the
radiochemical laboratory's operation," International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said in a report to the agency's annual General
Conference, referring to a site used to reprocess plutonium.
"Such
indications ceased in early July 2016," Amano said in the report posted
online and dated Friday. Those indications included deliveries of chemical
tanks and the operation of a steam plant linked to the lab, the report said.
The IAEA,
which has no access to North Korea and mainly monitors its activities by
satellite, said last year it had seen signs of a resumption of activity at
Yongbyon, including at the main reactor.
There were
signs the reactor had been running in the past year, with a pause between
October and December, probably to refill it with enough fuel for the next two
years, according to the report dated Friday.
Amano said in
June that the agency had seen signs of reprocessing, the production of
plutonium from spent reactor fuel, at Yongbyon.
Japan's Kyodo
news agency last week quoted North Korea as saying it had resumed plutonium
production by reprocessing and had no plans to stop nuclear tests as long as
perceived U.S. threats remain.
North Korea's
Atomic Energy Institute, which has jurisdiction over Yongbyon, also told Kyodo
it had been producing highly enriched uranium necessary for nuclear arms and
power "as scheduled".
"There
were indications consistent with the use of the reported centrifuge enrichment
facility," Amano's report to the General Conference, which will be held at
the end of September, said, adding that construction work had been carried out
around the building that houses the facility.
"There
were new construction and refurbishment activities on the (Yongbyon) site,
which are broadly consistent with (North Korea's) statement that all the
nuclear facilities in Yongbyon have been 'rearranged, changed or
readjusted'," it added
Source: Reuters
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