hankyoreh

In an April 14 statement issued by its Foreign Ministry, North Korea announced it would restore and restart activities at its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, which had been disabled under a breakthrough agreement in early 2007. For some analysts, this indicates that a firm timeline has been established for preventing North Korea from engaging in production of weapons-grade plutonium.　

In order to assess the possible timeline, experts call attention to Yongbyon‘s radiochemistry laboratory and its ability to reprocess used nuclear fuel rods and store weapons-grade plutonium. Currently, North Korea is believed to have removed some 6,500 out of 8,000 spent fuel rods it had stored at the Yongbyon plant.

Nuclear experts say it may take one or two months for North Korea to begin reprocessing. Lee Choon-geun, head of the South-North Cooperation Team at the Science & Technology Policy Institute, said North Korea was seen disabling the reprocessing facility by removing the seals that were in place when they stored the spent fuel rods. They also say it would take about three months for North Korea to remove and transport all of the 8,000 spent fuel rods.

Once completing that phase, it is estimated that North Korea could begin production of enough plutonium to make one or two nuclear bombs within four to five months.

Separately, experts say North Korea should spend about one year to restore its five-megawatt nuclear reactor at the Yongbyon complex. To put fuel rods into the reactor, North Korea will need to extract plutonium and then refine it. They also assess that North Korea should fix the cooling tower that it blew up in June last year. Lee said, “If North Korea starts rebuilding its nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility at the same time, it could restart all of its nuclear facilities’ functions within one year.”

Of course, North Korea could implement a strategy of slowing down the process of rebuilding its nuclear facilities while monitoring responses from related nations, including the U.S.

However, North Korea is seen by outside observers as speeding up the process in response to the presidential statement issued by the United Nations (UN) Security Council, which condemned North Korea‘s April 5 rocket launch. On day the UN Security Council statement was announced, North Korea ordered inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. experts to leave the country. In comparison, when the second North Korean nuclear crisis occurred in 2002, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry took 15 days to announce the expulsion of the IAEA delegation. On Aug. 26 last year, North Korea also threatened to stop disabling the Yongbyon nuclear complex in a protest against a delay by the U.S. to remove North Korea from Washington‘s list of terrorist nations, however, they did not kick out the IAEA inspectors at that time.

Owing to this point, experts say it is important to build an atmosphere of dialogue before the situation with North Korea deteriorates. Kim Yeon-cheol, director of the Hankyoreh Peace Research Institute, says, “The process of restarting the nuclear facilities will not happen for a couple of days, but North Korea cannot be seen as bluffing.” Kim pointed out, “Given the technical time to restart the facilities, it is important for the U.S. to express its willingness for dialogue before the situation worsens.”

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