North Korea shuts down its nuclear reactor to dump plutonium. Nuclear tests coming soon?
North Korea has shut down the nuclear reactor at its main atomic complex, possibly to extract plutonium that could be used for weapons by reprocessing spent fuel rods, a South Korean news outlet said Thursday, citing a government source.
Operation of the 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex has been suspended since late September, according to intelligence assessments by US and South Korean authorities.
“ South Korea and the United States believe this may be a sign of reprocessing work to obtain weapons-grade plutonium ,” the Donga Ilbo newspaper said, citing a government source.
The reprocessing of spent fuel rods removed from a nuclear reactor is a step before plutonium extraction. The Yongbyon nuclear complex is the North's main source of plutonium, which it likely used to build nuclear weapons.
North Korea has also operated uranium enrichment facilities, which is a separate source of material that could be used for nuclear weapons.
“ The possibility of a nuclear test by North Korea is not ruled out ,” the Donga Ilbo quoted a senior government official as saying, without specifying what analysis led to the belief that the move could be linked to a nuclear test.
South Korea's Defense Ministry spokeswoman Jeon Ha-gyu declined to comment on the details of the report but said U.S. and South Korean intelligence authorities were closely monitoring related developments.
North Korea has already shut down reactor operations before restarting it, and public confirmation of the purpose of such a move, whether for maintenance or to extract fuel, is usually not available.
North Korea declares itself a nuclear state, but has kept secret the number of nuclear weapons it may have built or deployed. According to independent estimates, the North has 70 kg of plutonium, which could be enough to build 20 or more atomic weapons.
US nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, who visited the Yongbyon complex in 2010, said that despite the time North Korea has devoted to the project, its capacity to produce plutonium and supplies of fissile material are still limited.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who recently hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a summit and pledged closer military cooperation with Pyongyang, could offer the North needed help with all aspects of its nuclear program, he said. Hecker confirmed.
“In the short term, what concerns me most is that Russia will clandestinely supply plutonium directly,” Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in a commentary published on the 38 North project. Russia officially possessed 65 tons of Plutonium in 2021, before the crisis in Ukraine, so transferring a hundred kg is possible.
North Korea has conducted six underground nuclear tests and there have been concerns since last year that it may be about to conduct another test as part of efforts to develop miniaturized nuclear warheads.
Last week, North Korea's parliament adopted a constitutional amendment on its nuclear force policy. Kim also ordered to “exponentially” increase nuclear weapons production and diversify its nuclear capabilities.
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The article North Korea stops its nuclear reactor to dump plutonium. Nuclear tests coming soon? comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-corea-del-nord-ferma-il-suo-reattore-nucleare-per-scaricare-il-plutonio-test-nucleari-in-arrivo/ on Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:00:03 +0000.