Word: yongbyon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Carter claimed a diplomatic breakthrough, reporting that North Korea would allow international inspectors to remain at the main nuclear installation in Yongbyon while "good-faith efforts" toward a settlement were resumed with the U.S. As the television cameras rolled, Carter told Kim the U.S. would suspend its effort to impose economic sanctions on North Korea...
...Administration is prepared to go back to serious talks -- if the North Koreans will first freeze their nuclear program. That means, explained Vice President Gore, they must not extract plutonium from the 8,000 fuel rods they have just removed from their 5-MW reactor at Yongbyon; they must not put new fuel rods into the reactor; they must keep the IAEA inspectors on duty "and allow them to function...
...first act of the drama is now over. Since the IAEA began poking into North Korea's nuclear facilities in May 1992, its primary goal has been to find out how much plutonium, an essential material required for weapons, has come out of the 5-megawatt research reactor in Yongbyon. Specifically, inspectors want to know how much plutonium the Koreans may have spirited away when the reactor was shut down for 100 days in 1989, before the inspections began, to discover whether Kim has the Bomb...
...there is no signal that they plan to do that. The fuel rods in the cooling ponds are still being monitored by two IAEA inspectors and automatic cameras at Yongbyon. The catch is that North Korea has threatened to withdraw entirely from the nonproliferation treaty if the U.N., or the U.S. unilaterally, imposes sanctions. That would defeat Clinton's purpose, since it would mean the end of all inspections, no matter how imperfect. Washington would have to assume that Pyongyang was reprocessing the plutonium to build bombs. Pressure would increase to pile on the sanctions and begin reinforcing South Korea...
...North Korean 5-MW nuclear reactor at Yongbyon has about 8,000 uranium fuel rods. Plutonium is created as a by-product of the reactor's operation...