MOSCOW, December 20 (RIA Novosti) - North Korea intends to develop graphite reactors, which can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, the country's main news agency said Tuesday.
In a move that is bound to take the already tense atmosphere around the Korean Peninsula up a level further, Pyongyang said its decision was due to a decision to cancel the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors begun after a 1994 agreement with the United States.
Six-nation talks involving Russia, the United States, China and Japan, as well as the two Koreas, opened in 2003 in a bid to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Since then, the country, led by the reclusive Kim Jong-il, has announced that it has built its own nuclear weapons. A plutonium bomb would in some ways present more of a threat than a uranium device, as a relatively small mass - only four kilograms - could be used for a 20-kiloton bomb. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II was the equivalent of 12-15 kilotons.
In typical fashion, North Korea has decided to hold the U.S. responsible for its latest move.
"With the Bush administration blocking the delivery of light-water reactors, we will develop our nuclear capabilities, and will build graphite reactors with capacities of 50 and 200 MWt," a spokesman said.
However, efforts will also be made to develop a light-water reactor to generate electricity, the representative said.
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international consortium led by the U.S. government and including South Korea, Japan, and the European Union, was to implement the agreement with the U.S. in October 1994, under which North Korea was to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two light-water reactors.
In 2003, KEDO halted the construction of a nuclear power plant in eastern North Korea due to tensions in relations between North Korea and the U.S., and the KEDO project has been annulled.
