Word: yongbyon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Since late April, North Korea has been telling the IAEA that it intended to unload fuel rods from its main nuclear reactor near the city of Yongbyon. According to Defense Secretary William Perry, Yongbyon's estimated 8,000 rods contain enough plutonium to build four or five bombs, and inspectors need to see if all the fuel is still there. The issue is of critical importance because the CIA estimates that fuel rods removed from Yongbyon in 1989 provided the plutonium to build one or two nuclear weapons. Whether Pyongyang actually has them is impossible to know for sure...
Information about North Korea's intentions has been at a premium since the aborted mission by the International Atomic Energy Agency in early March. After being stonewalled since February 1993, inspectors were finally allowed back to seven sites at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex. Nothing unusual was found at six of the sites, but at the seventh, where plutonium for bombs can be extracted from nuclear-fuel rods, the team discovered that an IAEA seal on an area containing a "glove box" for handling radioactive material was broken -- a janitor's mistake, claimed North Korea. But the inspectors were...
...canceled talks scheduled for this week with North Korea after Pyongyang refused to allow international inspectors full access to its Yongbyon nuclear facility. Washington also reportedly decided Saturday to reschedule joint military exercises with South Korea, which had been suspended. By week's end talks between archenemies North and South Korea collapsed...
After an 11-month standoff, North Korea has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it will permit inspection of seven nuclear sites. Not included in the arrangement: two sites in its Yongbyon complex believed to be waste dumps for weapons-grade plutonium. In a positive response, the South Korean Foreign Minister, Han Sung Joo, said the U.S. should reconsider its proposed deployment of Patriot missiles in South Korea...
What Washington does know is that the North Koreans have extracted some plutonium -- the raw material for weapons -- from its 5-megawatt nuclear power plant at Yongbyon, but the U.S. does not know exactly how much. Experts think it could be as much as 12kg (26 lbs.), which would be enough for one or two bombs -- if Pyongyang's engineers are able to build them...