US: DPRK's plutonium production violate UN resolution

• Source: Global Times
• [10:56 November 06 2009]
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The Obama administration accused the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) of producing plutonium in nuclear weapons Tuesday, saying North Korea violated UN Security Council resolutions and urged the country to go back to the six-party process. DPRK said that it had completed reprocessing spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear plant and weaponized plutonium to bolster its atomic stockpile on the same day.

Ian Kelly, spokesman for State Department said the DPRK's latest developments run counter to the commitment that it made in 2005, which violates UN Security Council resolutions. "What we're focused on with North Korea is getting to the point where we can re-launch the six-party talks, which will get us to our ultimate goal, which is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Kelly added.

The KCNA news agency of DPRK reported that the work of reprocessing of all the 8,000 spent nuclear rods, a key step to increase its nuclear arsenal, had been completed by the end of August in Yongbyon. The reprocessing was part of North Korea' s efforts to restore the Yongbyon nuclear facilities to their original state in response to the UN sanctions against it after DPRK conducted a rocket launch and the second nuclear testing this spring, according to KCNA.

"We have finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods as of August. We have made substantial achievements in weaponizing plutonium from the extraction," said North Korea's official news agency.

The allegation came a day after Pyongyang warned Washington that it would beef up its nuclear stockpile if the US refused to hold bilateral talks. Washington has said it is willing to meet one-on-one with the North if the talks lead to the resumption of the talks involving China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia and the US.

The Yongbyon nuclear facility was shut down in 2007 under a six-nation nuclear disarmament deal. It quit the six-party talks and announced it was resuming the reprocessing of plutonium from spent fuel rods at the reactor there in April. Experts said the North has enough fissile material for about six to eight nuclear weapons.