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N.Korea says to build light-water nuclear reactors
By Jon Herskovitz (Additional reporting by Lee Jin-joo)
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Tuesday it plans to build light-water atomic reactors and develop two other reactors that can produce large amounts of fissile material to boost its nuclear deterrent.
The official KCNA (official, as in the official news agency of the DPRK --Aric) news agency blamed the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush for the decision, made during a hold up in six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
It could complicate an already difficult diplomatic process further, analysts said.
Pyongyang had not said before it planned to build relatively proliferation resistant light-water reactors (LWRs) but had threatened to resume work on two graphite-moderated reactors (GMRs), which can produce large amounts of material for atomic bombs, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.
"There have never been any plans for North Korea to build LWRs on their own," the official said.
KCNA repeated the North's demand for compensation for an international consortium's decision to pull the plug on a long-stalled deal to provide it with two light-water reactors in exchange for it freezing its nuclear weapons programs.
The countries in the consortium -- known as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO -- said the project was shut down because the North had cheated on the original 1994 deal by having a secret uranium enrichment plan.
Pyongyang denied having such a project.
"The Bush administration's abandonment of its commitment to provide LWRs to the DPRK compels it to develop in real earnest its independent nuclear power industry based on 50,000 kilowatt and 200,000 KW GMRs and their related facilities," KCNA said.
DPRK is short for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
KCNA said North Korea would "start developing and building LWRs of Korean style in reliance upon its indigenous technology and potential when an appropriate time comes to put further spurs to its peaceful nuclear activities". It did not elaborate.
NO MONEY, STALLED TALKS
Nuclear experts say North Korea, which operates one, small nuclear reactor built with technology from the 1960s and 1970s, does not have the technology or money to build light-water reactors any time soon.
"As long as the Bush group persistently pursues the policy to stifle the DPRK, bent on arrogant, self-justified and high-handed practices while regarding 'force' as all-powerful, the DPRK will steadily bolster its nuclear deterrent as a powerful treasured sword for defending the sovereignty of the country," KCNA said.
Daniel Pinkston, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the California-based Center for Nonproliferation studies, said it would take years for North Korea just to complete the graphite-moderated reactors.
Any construction of nuclear reactors presented problems for the diplomatic process, he said.
"The further this goes forward, the more difficult it is to walk away from it and the more costly it becomes to dismantle them," Pinkston said by telephone.
The next round of nuclear talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States has been put in doubt, partly because of North Korea's anger at a UN vote to condemn it for human rights abuses and a U.S. crackdown on its finances.
Washington, which accuses North Korea of funding its nuclear programs partly through money obtained from counterfeiting, money laundering and the drug trade, has frozen a few of its assets and is trying to put the brakes on some firms.
The next round of the talks is likely to be held in January, sources familiar with the discussions say.
North Korea almost scuttled an outline statement agreed in September among the parties by demanding the United States build it a light-water reactor before it even started to consider scrapping its nuclear weapons programs.