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South Korea can quickly build nuclear weapons

South Korea has its own history of nuclear weapons development.

S. Korea has ability to build nuke weapons quickly: defense report, YONHAP NEWS, By Hwang Doo-hyong, WASHINGTON, March 17 – A U.S. defense report has described South Korea and Japan as having the technology to build nuclear weapons quickly if they decide to do so.
“Several friends or Allies of the United States, such as Japan and South Korea, are highly advanced technological states and could quickly build nuclear devices if they chose to do so,” said the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) 2010, released on Feb. 18 by the U.S. Joint Forces Command to forecast possible threats and opportunities for the U.S. military.

The report also said North Korea is “pursuing nuclear weapons technology and the means to deliver them as well.” The report’s assessment of South Korea’s nuclear capability comes at a sensitive time as Seoul and Washington are negotiating a possible extension of a 1974 agreement that calls for South Korea to obtain U.S. consent before reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

The agreement expires in 2014 and the sides are negotiating a new accord, which South Korea hopes will guarantee its right to reprocess spent fuel rods.

South Korea, which won a US$20 billion contract in December to build four reactors for the United Arab Emirates, has long complained that the constraint on reprocessing has blocked its aspirations.

Complicating the situation are the agreements the U.S. maintains with India, Japan and the European Union for the provision of technological assistance for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

At issue is whether the Obama administration considers pyroprocessing as reprocessing……Washington fears South Korea’s reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel might undermine global nonproliferation efforts, and provoke the North, and then Japan, making the security situation in Northeast Asia more volatile.

South Korea has its own history of nuclear weapons development.

YONHAP NEWS

March 19, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | South Korea, weapons and war | cancer, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear weapons