U.S. expert: N.Korea to remove fuel rods

[stu]

By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 33 minutes ago

 

 

 

BEIJING, - North Korea is planning to remove fuel rods at a nuclear reactor within the next three months in what would be a significant boost to its nuclear weapons capability, an American expert said Saturday.

 

Selig Harrison, director of the Asia program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, said North Korea's vice foreign minister told him in Pyongyang this week the secretive communist regime would unload the rods at the Yongbyon reactor "beginning this fall, and no later than the end of the year."

 

The North Korean official would neither confirm nor deny the country was planning to conduct its first known nuclear test, Harrison said. Last month, foreign intelligence reports said unusual activity at a possible testing site had been detected, sparking fears of an imminent test.

 

The Yongbyon reactor has been at the center of U.S. concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The reactor's spent fuel rods can be mined for plutonium, which can then be used to construct nuclear bombs.

 

Removing the fuel rods is "a significant new development because it underlines that North Korea is enhancing its weapons capability," Harrison said.

 

"Every time they unload it, they are getting a new increment of plutonium to be reprocessed and they are adding to the number of weapons that they could make," he said.

 

North Korea last removed fuel rods at the facility in June 2005 and was not due to do so again until June 2007, Harrison told reporters in Beijing shortly after arriving from a four-day stay in North Korea.

 

"They are speeding it up because they want to use Yongbyon as leverage to get bilateral negotiations with the United States," he said.

 

North Korea has long sought direct talks with Washington over its nuclear program, but the U.S. has insisted on six-nation negotiations that also include China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

 

Those talks have been stalled since November 2005 because the North refuses to return until the U.S. lifts financial restrictions against it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. Washington has refused to end them and said the issue is unrelated to the nuclear standoff.

 

Earlier this week, Japan and Australia slapped fresh economic sanctions on North Korea for test-firing seven long-range missiles in July. The move was meant to pressure Pyongyang to return to the six-nation negotiations to abandon its nuclear program.

 

Harrison has been an occasional visitor to North Korea and the North's secretive government has often used him to convey messages to the outside world. During this trip, Harrison said he met with Kim Yong Dae, vice president of the Supreme People's Assembly; Lt. Gen. Ri Chan Bok, a senior military figure; as well as Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.