nuclear-news

USA rejects South Korea’s push to enrich uranium

Samore says no need for S. Korea to enrich uranium By Lee Chi-dong WASHINGTON, July 23 (Yonhap) — Gary Samore, President Barack Obama’s top aide for nonproliferation, said Monday that the U.S. sees no need for South Korea to enrich uranium, a stance against Seoul’s goals.

Samore, arms control coordinator at the White House National
Security Council, said South Korean can continue to buy enrichment
services from the U.S. and France and in other international markets
rather than having its own uranium-enrichment technology.

“So there is no danger that Korean industry will not be able to get
access to low enriched uranium,” which is fuel for the country’s 22
reactors, he said in meeting with several South Korean reporters after
a forum on the Nuclear Security Summit. Seoul hosted the second
Nuclear Security Summit in March…….
Samore’s comments apparently reflect Washington’s firm stance to keep
restricting South Korea from having uranium-enrichment technology in
line with its global nonproliferation efforts.

The allies are in drawn-out talks to rewrite their decades-old
nuclear cooperation accord, which expires in 2014.

South Korea hopes to revise the pact so that it can have the right
to enrich uranium for civilian purposes and reprocess its nuclear
waste amid worries over a shortage of storage facilities.

Seoul claims it need to expand its nonmilitary nuclear program to
meet its enhanced status as a nuclear energy producer….
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2012/07/24/52/0301000000AEN20120724000400315F.HTML

July 25, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, South Korea, Uranium