NORTH KOREA: North Korea has taken a further dangerous step down the nuclear road by moving fresh fuel rods to a reactor which can produce weapons-grade plutonium, UN officials warned yesterday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Pyongyang's technicians had already brought in 1,000 fuel rods - more than twice the number previously observed by its inspectors on the site at Yongbyon.
The IAEA director, Mr Mohamed El Baradei, said that the move raised serious proliferation concerns and was "tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship".
Rejecting Pyongyang's claims that the plant was being restarted for peaceful use, he said that it was "irrelevant to [North Korea's\] ability to produce electricity" and that North Korea had no legitimate peaceful use for plutonium.
With most attention focused on Iraq, Pyonyang's increasingly aggressive behaviour is causing mounting concern in Washington.
Earlier this week, the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, warned North Korea that the US was capable of fighting two major regional conflicts, saying: "We are capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other. And let there be no doubt about it."
South Korea's outgoing president, Kim Dae-jung, yesterday sought to salvage his faltering "sunshine" diplomacy - aimed at opening up relations with the north - with a call for renewed efforts to solve the crisis.
Seoul confirmed that North Korea had begun moving the fresh fuel rods. "North Korea wants to show that its earlier pledge to restart nuclear activities is not an empty threat," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The Yongbyon programme had been frozen in 1994 in a deal with the US which Pyongyang says has since been broken. It claims that the reactor is being restarted to provide North Korea with electricity which was to have been generated by alternative means supplied by an international consortium. Two promised light-water reactors have not yet been built and the shipment of fuel oil to North Korea was suspended last month.
"The US is going round trying to stir public opinion internationally . . . \ our move has got nothing to do with plans to develop nuclear weapons," Radio Pyongyang announced.
However, Pyongyang simultaneously hinted that it may possess a nuclear capability which might be used with "horrible consequences" if the US launched even a limited attack on Yongbyon. North Korea's strategy, as far as it can be discerned, is to take advantage of the election of Mr Roh Moo-hyun, who takes over as South Korea's president in February, and of a wave of anti-US feeling in the south to drive the Bush administration to negotiate with it directly. - (Guardian Service)