hankyoreh

2003

North Korea ordered related ministries to review the construction conditions of a light-water reactor in Sinpo, North Hamgyong Province, which had its construction suspended after the abandonment of its Agreed Framework with the US, a Japanese newspaper reported.

In a May 6 report citing an unnamed North Korea relations source, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper wrote that North Korean officials ordered an inspection of conditions of a light-water reactor in the Kumho region of Sinpo, which has laid abandoned in a state of roughly 30% completion. The newspaper also said authorities had ordered a detailed report on the possibility of resuming the reactors’ construction and the materials needed to do so.

The light-water reactor in question is a two million-kilowatt unit the US agreed to provide to North Korea following their Agreed Framework in Geneva, which resolved the first North Korean nuclear crisis in Oct. 1994. Faced with chronic power shortages, North Korea asked for and won the US’s agreement in the framework to provide a light-water reactor in exchange for abandoning its nuclear weapons, along with heavy oil to serve as an energy source until the reactor was complete.

South Korea, the US, and Japan subsequently established the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to build the reactor. But construction was halted in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy when the George W. Bush administration backed out of the agreement in Oct. 2002, claiming that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons with highly enriched uranium.

North Korea has not given up its attachment to light-water reactors. In Sept. 2005, it pushed strongly for one to be provided with the Sept. 19 Joint Statement from the Six-Party Talks, which promised normalization of North Korea-US relations in exchange for the North abandoning its nuclear program. As a result, the final text included a reference to “discuss[ing], at an appropriate time, the subject of the provision of [a] light water reactor to the D.P.R.K.”

Judging from that precedent, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is very likely to demand light-water reactor assistance and other large-scale economic support in addition to normalization of relations with the US if a successful conclusion is reached during the upcoming North Korea-US summit, which is expected to take place in early June. The light-water reactor has received attention as a suitable reactor model for North Korea, as it cannot be used to obtain plutonium through reprocessing – unlike the graphite-moderated reactor in Yongbyon, which is the site of many of North Korea’s nuclear facilities.

Bird‘s-eye view of Shinpo nuclear power plant units one and two. KEDO’s Executive Board announced Nov. 21

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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