Seoul - North Korea's decision to remove eight thousand spent nuclear fuel rods from international control is the most dangerous move yet in a two-month-old confrontation over nuclear weapons, analysts said on Monday.
"If North Korea decides that it is actually going to use those fuel rods, that decision will create a lot of problems," said professor Yu Suk-Ryul of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security here.
The rods could be used to extract some 25kg of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for at least three nuclear weapons, experts say. They were sealed in 1994 under an accord North Korea signed with the United States to freeze its nuclear weapons programme in return for energy supplies and the construction in North Korea of two advanced light-water reactors by an international consortium.
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The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that North Korea began removing seals and monitoring cameras on Saturday from its frozen nuclear facilities.
| The nuclear situation will shift rapidly into crisis |
Pyongyang ignored IAEA appeals for restraint and took further action on Sunday to remove seals from a cooling pond containing the irradiated fuel rods at one of its nuclear reactors in Yongbyong.
"We still have some hope that what we have here is a game of brinkmanship," said an international affairs analyst at the Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea.
But the Stalinist regime's decision to tap into the spent fuel can also mean something more sinister, experts warned.
"If North Korea starts work on the spent fuel rods again, the nuclear situation will shift rapidly into crisis," predicted Yu.
The US and North Korea went to the brink of war over Pyongyang's plutonium programme in the early 1990s.
| 'Bush will wait until after he has dealt one way or another with Iraq' |
Washington believes Pyongyang derived enough weapons-grade plutonium from the programme for at least one nuclear bomb and that it could speedily produce more by reactivating the programme.
The confrontation was defused when Washington and Pyongyang signed the 1994 Agreed Framework, an arms control accord that has contributed to security in Northeast Asia for the past eight years.
North Korea agreed to freeze a five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, 60km north of Pyongyang, to halt the construction of two other reactors, and to put a cooling pond containing the spent fuel rods under control of the IAEA.
Since October, the Agreed Framework has been unravelling following the US announcement that Pyongyang has admitted to running a new nuclear programme based on enriched uranium technology in violation of the 1994 accord.
North Korea says its latest move to unseal its nuclear facilities was forced on it because of an energy crisis aggravated by the US-led decision last month to suspend heavy fuel shipments to punish Pyongyang for its uranium-based programme.
Throughout the crisis, Pyongyang has demanded talks with Washington and said it would address Washington's "security concerns" in return for a non-aggression pact, an offer Washington has so far turned down.
The US, supported by its main allies, wants the North to scrap its nuclear programmes first.
"North Korea is using the same tactics it used with the Clinton administration in 1994 during the last nuclear crisis," said Yu. "But the situation is quite different now. Their tactics will not work as well."
He said that President George W Bush, who earlier this year labelled the Pyongyang regime part of "an axis of evil" along with Iran and Iraq, was unlikely to bend to the latest Pyongyang threats.
"Bush will wait until after he has dealt one way or another with Iraq before paying full attention to Pyongyang," he said.
In the meantime, North Korea will be seeking to influence Roh Moo-Hyun, the South Korea president-elect who supports President Kim's Dae-Jung's "sunshine" policy of peaceful engagement with North Korea, he said.
Liberal Roh will travel to Washington early in his presidency for a summit with Bush.
"They will be very interested in that summit, and will be hoping that Roh pushes hard for engagement," said Yu. - Sapa-AFP
- This article was originally published on page 0 of Cape Times on December 24, 2002
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