The director of US National Intelligence, James Clapper, warned in February that the North could begin recovering plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel “within a matter of weeks to months”. They added that the plant was working on improving the “quality and quantity” of its nuclear weapons.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has no access to North Korea and mainly monitors its activities by satellite, said previous year it had seen signs of a resumption of activity at Yongbyon, including at the main reactor.
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said that despite the evidence, his organization still can not be sure about North Korea’s nuclear activities.
North Korea announced last September it had reactivated the Yongbyon facility, Reuters reports. The small reactor is capable of producing spent fuel rods that, if reprocessed, could give the regime enough plutonium to make at least one bomb a year. He also informed the US Senate Armed Services Committee that Pyongyang had expanded its uranium enrichment facility at the site. But, he pointed to movements of vehicles and steam coming out of the North’s nuclear site in Yongbyon where its five megawatt reactor is located.
The Yongbyon plant was mothballed between 2007 and 2013 under a disarmament-for-aid deal struck between the “sunshine” era of detente between North and South Korea.
Centrifuges enrich uranium, a process that can purify the element to the level needed for use in a nuclear weapon.
“As a responsible nuclear weapons state, our republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes”, Kim said while addressing a rare party gathering in Pyongyang.
Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6 and subsequently launched a long-range rocket carrying an earth observation satellite on February 7.
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Pyongyang has been under United Nations sanctions over its nuclear tests and launching missiles considered by the USA and South Korea as ballistic and aimed at delivering nuclear warheads.
