North Korea has reopened plutonium plant: IAEA

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says there are “indications” that North Korea has relaunched plutonium production from spent reactor fuel at a major nuclear facility near the country’s capital.

"Resumption of the activities of the five-megawatt reactor, the expansion of centrifuge-related facility, reprocessing, these are some of the examples of the areas (of activity indicated at Yongbyon)," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said at a news conference during a quarterly IAEA Board of Governors meeting on Monday, Press TV reported.

Later in the day, an IAEA spokesman also said there are "indications the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon has been reactivated. It is possible that it is reprocessing spent fuel."

The UN nuclear watchdog, which has no access to North Korea, mainly uses satellite technology to monitor its activities.

In September last year, Pyongyang announced that Yongbyon had been restarted and was working towards improving the "quality and quantity" of arms which it could use against Washington at "any time."

The North had vowed two years earlier to reactivate Yongbyon and all other nuclear facilities.

Although plutonium in North Korea is widely believed to have been obtained from spent fuel at Yongbyon, little is known about the country’s ability to produce plutonium or weapons-grade uranium, and its stockpile of the two materials.

SS