Bloomberg---North Korea has restarted
construction on a nuclear reactor that is an essential component
in building nuclear weapons, according to a U.S. university
monitoring project.
Commercial satellite imagery from April 30 shows that the
Pyongyang government is close to completing a containment
building for a new experimental light water reactor, according
to a website maintained by Johns Hopkins University’s School of
Advanced International Studies based in Washington.
The reactor, for possible completion by 2014-2015, would be
able to supply needed electricity as well as fissile material
for a nuclear weapon, the report says. It quoted a former deputy
director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Olli Heinonen, as saying that once the reactor is operational, it
would be capable of producing enough plutonium to add “a little
more than one bomb per year” to North Korea’s nuclear weapons
stockpile.
U.S.-led talks to curb North Korea’s nuclear program fell
apart last month. The U.S. and South Korea have expressed
concern that the North, under new leader Kim Jong Un, is
preparing to test a nuclear explosive device soon.
North Korea issued several threats last month with
officials talking of “powerful modern weapons” and threatening
to reduce South Korea to “ashes” in minutes.
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