Word: yongbyon
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...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...
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...