nuclear-news

North Korea moving ahead with uranium enrichment

Pyongyang is in ‘final phase’ of uranium program
North’s envoy tells Security Council about its ‘weaponized’ plutonium
Joongangla Daily By Yoo Jee-ho 5 Sept
North Korea said yesterday its uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons production has entered its final phase and that it is making more weapons from extracted plutonium. The North also claimed it is prepared for both dialogue and punitive measures.

“Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into the completion phase,” reported the state-run Korean Central News Agency, quoting a letter sent by Sin Son-ho, the top North Korean envoy at the United Nations, to the UN Security Council. “The reprocessing of spent fuel rods is at its final phase and extracted plutonium is being weaponized.”……………….

Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative to Pyongyang, told reporters in Beijing that the North’s claim for the near completion of uranium enrichment was a cause for concern.

“Obviously, anything that the North is doing in the area of nuclear development is of concern to us,” Bosworth said, before departing for Seoul yesterday. “I think for all of us, it reconfirms the necessity to maintain a coordinated position on the need for complete, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Pyongyang is in ‘final phase’ of uranium program – INSIDE JoongAng Daily

September 5, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, North Korea, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons, uranium