North Korea ratchets up tension

To restart nuclear reactor program, and expand nuclear arsenal

April 2, 2013 – NORTH KOREA - North Korea said on Tuesday that it will put all its nuclear facilities —
including its operational uranium-enrichment program and its reactors mothballed or under construction — to use in expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal, sharply raising the stakes in the escalating standoff with the United States and its allies. The announcement by the North’s General Department of Atomic Energy came two days after the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said his nuclear weapons were not a bargaining chip and called for expanding his country’s nuclear arsenal both in “quality and quantity” during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. The decision will affect the role of the North’s uranium-enrichment plant in the North’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, a spokesman for the nuclear department told the Korean Central News Agency. This marked the first time North Korea said that it would use the facility to make nuclear weapons. Since first unveiling it to a visiting U.S. scholar in 2010, North Korea had insisted that it was running the plant to make reactor fuel to generate electricity, though Washington suggested its purpose was to make bombs. Saying “we will act on this without delay,” the spokesman also said that North Korea will restart its mothballed nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. The 5-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor had been the main source of plutonium bomb fuel for North Korea until it was shut down under a short-lived nuclear disarmament deal with Washington in 2007. North Korean engineers were believed to have extracted enough plutonium for six to eight bombs — including the devices detonated in 2006 and 2009 in underground nuclear tests — from the spent fuel unloaded from the reactor. It is unknown whether North Korea’s third nuclear test in February used some of its limited stockpile of plutonium or used fuel from its uranium-enrichment program, whose scale and history remain a mystery.  A restarting of the reactor and weapons-producing role for its uranium-enrichment plant would add to growing American concern over the North’s nuclear weapons program. The developments would mean that the North would now have two sources of fuel for atomic bombs - plutonium and highly enriched uranium - and could become more strident in demands. In Beijing, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, said that China, Pyongyang’s main ally, felt “regretful” about North Korea’s announcement. “We have noticed the statement made by the DPRK and feel regretful about it,” Mr. Hong said Tuesday at the daily briefing to reporter. China urged “all parties to remain calm and restrained,” he said. –NY Times