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North Korea Says It Will Restart Reactor to Expand Arsenal
North Korea Says It Will Restart Reactor to Expand Arsenal
(about 5 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Tuesday that it would put all its nuclear facilities — including its operational uranium-enrichment program and its reactors mothballed or under construction — to use in expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal, sharply raising the stakes in the escalating standoff with the United States and its allies.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea announced plans on Tuesday to restart a mothballed nuclear reactor, the latest in a series of provocations by its leader, Kim Jong-un, to elicit a muted response from American officials, who believe they can wait out Mr. Kim’s threats until he realizes his belligerent behavior will not force South Korea or the United States to make any concessions.
The announcement by the North’s General Department of Atomic Energy came two days after the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said his nuclear weapons were not a bargaining chip and called for expanding his country’s nuclear arsenal in “quality and quantity” during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
“Right now, they’re testing the proposition that we’ll choose peace and quiet, and put it on our MasterCard,” said a senior American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s internal calculations. “When they get through this cycle, they will have gotten no return on their investment.”
The decision will affect the role of the North’s uranium-enrichment plant in its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of the capital, Pyongyang, a spokesman for the nuclear department told the Korean Central News Agency. It was the first time North Korea said it would use the plant to make nuclear weapons. Since first unveiling it to a visiting American scholar in 2010, North Korea had insisted that it was running the plant to make reactor fuel to generate electricity, though Washington suggested that its purpose was to make bombs.
Secretary of State John Kerry, using time-tested diplomatic language, said North Korea’s plan to restart the reactor would be a “provocative act” that is “a direct violation of their international obligations.” Speaking in Washington after his first meeting with South Korea’s foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, Mr. Kerry reaffirmed the determination of the United States to defend its ally.
Saying “work will be put into practice without delay,” the spokesman also said North Korea would refurbish and restart its mothballed nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. The five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor had been the main source of plutonium bomb fuel for North Korea until it was shut down under a short-lived nuclear disarmament deal with the United States in 2007. North Korean engineers are believed to have extracted enough plutonium for six to eight bombs — including the devices detonated in 2006 and 2009 in underground nuclear tests — from the spent fuel unloaded from the reactor.
American officials still worry about the consequences of any miscalculation, given the hair-trigger tensions on the Korean Peninsula and Mr. Kim’s inexperience at this type of brinkmanship. The top American commander in South Korea, Gen. James D. Thurman, described the situation as “tense” and “volatile” in an interview with ABC News.
But the senior official predicted that North Korea would eventually back down, as Mr. Kim’s need for food aid and hard currency outweighed the domestic political gains from his threats to shoot missiles at American cities.
“The North Koreans want the international community to feed their people, fuel their factories, and fill their bank accounts,” the official said. “If North Korea were a self-sufficient enterprise, we would have a much bigger problem on our hands.”
Still, the announcements by the North’s General Department of Atomic Energy were troubling on a couple of levels: the plan to restart the reactor at the main nuclear complex in Yongbyon reverses gains from a short-lived 2007 nuclear disarmament deal with the United States. And its plan to use a uranium-enrichment plant on the site for the weapons program gives it two ways of producing fuel for bombs, since the reactor produces plutonium.
The announcements came two days after Mr. Kim said his nuclear weapons were not a bargaining chip and called for expanding the arsenal in “quality and quantity” during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
It was the first time North Korea had said it would use the uranium plant to make nuclear weapons. Since unveiling it to a visiting American scholar in 2010, North Korea had insisted it was running the plant to make reactor fuel to generate electricity, though Washington suggested that its purpose was bombs.
The five-megawatt, graphite-moderated reactor, which experts say would require significant effort to bring back on line, had been the main source of plutonium bomb fuel until it was shut down under the deal with the United States. North Korean engineers are believed to have extracted enough plutonium for six to eight bombs from the spent fuel unloaded from the reactor.
It is unknown whether North Korea’s third nuclear test in February used some of its limited stockpile of plutonium or fuel from its uranium-enrichment program, whose scale and history remain a mystery.
It is unknown whether North Korea’s third nuclear test in February used some of its limited stockpile of plutonium or fuel from its uranium-enrichment program, whose scale and history remain a mystery.
Mr. Kim has recently raised tensions with a torrent of threats to attack the United States and South Korea with pre-emptive nuclear strikes. But this week, he appeared to shift his tone slightly by reiterating that his nuclear weapons were a deterrent that helped his country focus on the more pressing domestic issue of rebuilding the economy.
Mr. Kim has recently raised tensions with a torrent of threats to attack the United States and South Korea with pre-emptive nuclear strikes. But this week, he appeared to shift his tone slightly by reiterating that his nuclear weapons were a deterrent that helped his country focus on more pressing domestic economic issues.
Even so, a restarting of the reactor and weapons-producing role for its uranium-enrichment plant would add to growing American concern over the North’s nuclear weapons program. The developments mean that the North would now have two sources of fuel for atomic bombs — plutonium and highly enriched uranium — and that Mr. Kim could become more strident in his demands.
The White House said it was reaching out to China and Russia to encourage them to use their influence to urge restraint on Pyongyang. The senior American official said the new Chinese leadership, led by President Xi Jinping, was frustrated by Mr. Kim’s belligerence, which it viewed as a threat to China’s own security. And Mr. Yun of South Korea said that the Chinese had been cooperative since the passage of the latest United Nations sanctions.
China’s official Xinhua news agency issued comments from Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui that did not expressly single out North Korea but nonetheless signaled deepening worry about its actions and the response from the United States and its allies. Mr. Zhang told Xinhua that he had met with diplomats from the countries concerned and “expressed grave concern over current developments.” The report did not identify those countries.
China’s official Xinhua news agency issued comments from Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui that did not expressly single out North Korea but nonetheless signaled deepening worry about its actions and the response from the United States and its allies.
Mr. Zhang, whose areas of responsibility include Asian affairs, repeated China’s call for restraint on the Korean peninsula, using more urgent language than his government has tended to use until now.
“We do not want to see war or turmoil break out on the peninsula, and we oppose provocative words and actions by any side,” Mr. Zhang said, using more urgent language than his government has tended to use until now.
“We do not want to see war or turmoil break out on the peninsula, and we oppose provocative words and actions by any side, and oppose any side doing harm to the peace and stability of the peninsula and the region,” said Mr. Zhang. “China strongly urges all sides to exercise calm and restraint, to avoid mutual provocation, and to never take any dangerous actions that worsen the situation.”
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said Tuesday that North Korea appeared to be “on a collision course with the international community.” Speaking in Andorra, he said international negotiations were needed.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said Tuesday that North Korea appeared to be “on a collision course with the international community,” The Associated Press reported. Speaking in Andorra, where he is on an official visit, Mr. Ban said the crisis had gone too far and international negotiations were urgently needed.
Choe
Sang-Hun reported from Seoul, and Mark Landler from Washington.
In Mr. Kim’s speech before the party meeting, the script of which was published in the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday, he said making the country’s possession of self-defense nuclear weapons “permanent” was essential to ensuring that the country could focus on rebuilding its economy.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
“Now that we have become a proud nuclear state, we have gained a favorable ground from which we can concentrate all our finance and efforts in building the economy and improving the people’s lives based on the strong deterrent against war,” Mr. Kim said, underscoring what his regime has long defined as the fruit of its “military first” policy. “We must now focus all our resources on building an economically strong nation.”
But Mr. Kim also kept up his strident tone, saying North Korea should continue to build up its nuclear capabilities “as long as the imperialists’ nuclear blackmail and invasion threat continue,” and calling on his soldiers to prepare for a “score-settling war” against the Americans.
“He is chasing after two rabbits at the same time,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea specialist at Dongguk University in Seoul. “On one hand, he is calling for nuclear armament. On the other hand, he is telling his people that his nuclear weapons will bring about economic dividends.”
Moving swiftly upon the party’s “new strategic line,” the country’s atomic energy department said measures were being taken to expand the North’s nuclear deterrent, as well as to build an indigenous nuclear power industry to resolve the country’s acute electricity shortage. The North’s rubber-stamp Parliament, the Supreme People’s Republic, enacted a new law on Monday on “consolidating the position of nuclear weapons state,” official media reported on Tuesday.
North Korea “shall take practical steps to bolster up the nuclear deterrence and nuclear retaliatory strike power both in quality and quantity to cope with the gravity of the escalating danger of the hostile forces’ aggression and attack,” the law said. It also said North Korea shall cooperate for “nuclear nonproliferation,” depending on “the improvement of relations with hostile nuclear weapons states.”
North Korea used the perceived threats from the United States, like its joint military drills with South Korea, to justify its nuclear weapons arsenal. At the same time, it “is continuing to expand its nuclear program and raising the fear of proliferation to force Washington to manage and engage it," said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at Sejong Institute.
The North’s new party line removed any lingering “ambiguity” over what North Korea might try to do with its nuclear weapons, said a senior South Korean government official, who briefed a group of foreign reporters on President Park Geun-hye’s policy on North Korea on condition that he remain unnamed.
“We now know their real intention,” he said. “The picture is clear. What we will do is the combined will of the international community.” He added that South Korea, the United States and their allies must employ “all means” of pressure on North Korea, including not only economic sanctions but also investigations into the North’s human rights abuses. “They are depending on nuclear weapons for their survival, but we must persuade them that there is an alternative and brinkmanship doesn’t work.”
North Korea demolished the cooling tower of the old Soviet-era five-megawatt reactor in 2008 to demonstrate its commitment to the 2007 deal with Washington. In return, the United States State Department removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The deal, however, quickly unraveled over differences in nuclear inspections between Washington and the North. And the North has since been making preparations to restart it as well as building a new reactor in Yongbyon, though officials here said the country was still months, if not years, from getting the old, decrepit reactor on line again.
More worrisome to them is uranium enrichment. North Korea publicly acknowledged enriching uranium in 2009, but American officials had suspected enrichment activity in the North as early as 2002. They fear that the enrichment plant unveiled in 2010 is only part of a much bigger, harder to detect and more sustainable program to make nuclear bomb fuel.
North Korea is rich in uranium ores. Unlike the plutonium program, which included a large and easily spotted nuclear reactor, an enrichment plant composed of 1,000 centrifuges occupies a 600-square-meter space, small enough to be hidden in one of the estimated 8,000 tunnels North Korea has dug for military purposes across its mountainous terrain, South Korean military officials said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 2, 2013
Correction: April 2, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of space that a uranium-enrichment plant would occupy. It is 600 square meters, not 60.
An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of space that a uranium-enrichment plant would occupy. It is 600 square meters, not 60.
