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By John Fritze, USA TODAY ========================================================================= WASHINGTON — Administration and congressional leaders warned Sunday that an "astonishingly modern" uranium enrichment facility discovered in North Korea by an American scientist is a troubling development with the potential to destabilize the region. Revelations of the previously undisclosed facility, which North Korean officials told the scientist is being used to produce civilian power and not weapons, presents a new challenge to the White House as the Obama administration considers whether to restart talks on the North's nuclear program. Stanford University scientist Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in a report released over the weekend that the North Koreans showed him the facility, which he described as "stunning." The plant's control room, he wrote, could "fit into any modern American processing facility." "From my perspective, it's North Korea continuing on a path which is destabilizing for the region," Adm. Michael Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, said on CNN's State of the Union. "It confirms or validates the concern we've had for years about their enriching uranium." North Korea said last year it was in the final stages of enriching uranium, which would allow the country to augment its plutonium-based weapons program. Hecker noted in his report how quickly Kim Jong Il's government appears to have advanced toward that goal: Officials told Hecker construction on the facility began in April 2009. "These facilities appear to be designed primarily for civilian nuclear power, not to boost North Korea's military capability," he wrote in the report, which was made public. "Nevertheless, the uranium enrichment facilities could be readily converted to produce highly enriched uranium bomb fuel." Michael Green, senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the discovery "puts an exclamation point" on what experts had believed: "They couldn't be more obvious about their intention to develop their nuclear weapons capacity to threaten the rest of the region," he said. News of the facility arrives after months of heightened tension in the region with South Korea over the March sinking of its warship Cheonan, in which 46 sailors were killed. An international investigation found the ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, but Pyongyang has denied the attack. The decision to reveal the facility at this time, said one expert, is no coincidence. "North Korea continues to control the message that they want to send out," said Jae Ku, director of Johns Hopkins University's U.S.-Korea Institute. "Probably the message is they would like to get back on some sort of negotiations track." Hecker's report, first revealed in The New York Times, comes as Stephen Bosworth, U.S. envoy for North Korea policy, begins talks with South Korea, Japan and China over the North's nuclear program and the possibility of resuming six-party talks, which would also include Russia. Discussions last occurred in 2008. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday that only an approach focused on security and development will work: "The longer it takes to launch that effort, the longer the United States and its allies will be forced to cope with the destabilizing consequences." ================================================= |
Sunday, November 21, 2010
North Korea and the Nuclear Scare.
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