North Korea ‘has six nukes’
VIENNA: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is convinced that North Korea has built four to six nuclear bombs out of the nuclear material the agency had monitored there until 2002.
Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, whose team of investigators was expelled from North Korea, said: “We know they have the fissile material. I’m sure they have reprocessed it all.”
He said enough time had passed for North Korea to solve the problems of turning the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods the agency was monitoring into weapons-grade plutonium. “The production process is not that difficult.”
He said his claim was not based on new intelligence but on the agency’s extensive knowledge of the country. A spokesman for the US National Security Council said he was unaware of any change in the official assessment of North Korea.
Dr ElBaradei’s comments go beyond anything the CIA or US President George W. Bush have said publicly and puts pressure on the White House to either take forcible action against North Korea or cut a deal.
The US insists North Korea has enough nuclear material to make only one or two weapons and that it cannot afford to sell its plutonium or conduct a nuclear test. However, that assessment is based on estimates from the early 1990s and has been contested behind the scenes.
A former senior State Department official, Robert Einhorn, said the comments would “certainly create some pressure” on Bush. “Would the North Koreans ever sell their plutonium? It becomes more plausible if they think we are turning the screws on them,” he said.
North Korea agreed in 1994 to freeze plutonium production but in 2002 renounced the deal and ejected the International Atomic Energy Agency after the US accused it of trying to produce highly enriched uranium.
Since then the US had been working with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to negotiate the dismantling of North Korea’s weapons programme, but the talks stalled in September. They are expected to resume next year.
Last month the commander of US forces in South Korea, General Leon LaPorte, said he was increasingly worried “North Korea, in its desire for hard currency, would sell weapons-grade plutonium to some terrorist organisations”. – Agencies
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