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VIENNA – The UN nuclear watchdog is following reports that North Korea may have restarted a reactor capable of producing plutonium for weapons, but does not yet have a “clear understanding” of the situation there, its chief said on Thursday. A US research institute and a US official said on Wednesday that satellite imagery suggested North Korea had restarted a research reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.
“As we don’t have inspectors there we don’t have anything for sure,” Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters in Vienna when asked about the reports.
He declined to say whether the IAEA, which follows the North’s nuclear programme via satellite images, had seen any steam coming from the site. Asked whether it was a worrying development, he said: “As we don’t have a clear understanding (of the situation) we cannot make a comment.”
Meanwhile, Russia said on Thursday that North Korea was apparently conducting work on a nuclear reactor, warning that the ageing facility was in such a “nightmarish state” it could cause a disaster.
“It is obvious that some works are being conducted, and for a long time at that. According to some signs, steps were indeed being taken to relaunch it,” the Interfax news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying.
The source said that Russia did not have definite information that Pyongyang had restarted the plutonium reactor at Yongbyon, as US analysts have suggested based on satellite imagery, but warned of dire consequences if this happened.
“We do not have any information that the reactor has been relaunched,” the source said.
“Our main concern is linked to a very likely manmade disaster as a consequence. The reactor is in a nightmarish state, it is a design dating back to the 1950s.”
“For the Korean peninsula this could entail terrible consequences, if not a man-made catastrophe.”
The white steam picked up by satellites rising from a building next to the reactor “could simply be testing of the generator,” the diplomatic source cautioned, however.
In a separate dispatch, Interfax cited a diplomatic source as saying there was little hope for constructive talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme.
“The North Koreans are saying ‘We are ready to renew talks,’ but it’s not clear what about,” the source said.
“So far the situation is complicated.” – Reuters/AFP.
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