Word: reactors
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...Iran should some day announce it is building atom bombs. And at any time during the next 10 years or so, the Pyongyang regime could break the agreement and resume building a nuclear arsenal. Clinton noted that North Korea would then lose all future benefits in oil and reactor-building money. A more conclusive defense: since the U.S. discovered it could not get international support for economic sanctions against Pyongyang, there have been only two real alternatives to something like the current agreement. One was a continued stalemate, during which North Korea could build nuclear weapons with no check...
Still, the optimism born of the last talks in August, when the U.S. thought + it had resolved several key disputes, has dissipated. Pyongyang had agreed to replace its suspect gas-graphite reactor at Yongbyon and two larger ones under construction with two light-water reactors that would generate far less plutonium that could be used in bombs. The U.S. had promised its allies would pay most of the $4 billion price...
...International Atomic Energy Agency at the two sites suspected of containing waste from past bomb-building efforts. Gallucci thought Kang had firmly committed the North to permit these inspections -- crucial to confirming whether Pyongyang already has obtained plutonium to make bombs -- before any components for the new reactors arrived. But this week Kang insisted the North would never permit special inspections, and would only start talking to the IAEA about its past nuclear program once the new reactors were more than 50% complete. Kang also said his government intended to keep the plutonium-rich fuel rods it removed from...
...ominous new threat, he said Pyongyang wanted to insert new fuel rods into the reactor now, so it can generate more plutonium. While there is no sign the North has actually started refueling, Gallucci told Kang any attempt to do so would end all talks...
Washington can afford to wait a few weeks. IAEA inspectors note that North Korea is finally taking better care of the fuel rods removed from the Yongbyon reactor; they can remain safely in their cooling ponds for several more months under present conditions and much longer if the water quality is improved. Bill Clinton has no interest in encouraging another big international crisis while American troops are deployed in Haiti. But the fear that Pyongyang is just buying time while it builds secret bombs weighs more heavily than ever on many minds in Washington. Clinton will need real results soon...