Posted on 12/26/2002 8:02:49 PM PST by Mensch
Protests grow over N Korea nuclear plans
Pyongyang has removed UN surveillance equipment
Australia has halted plans to open an embassy in North Korea, in the latest expression of international protest against Pyongyang's moves to restart a nuclear reactor which could produce weapons-grade plutonium.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said opening the embassy would send the wrong message now that North Korea had walked away from its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
The UN's nuclear watchdog has warned that the Yongbyon reactor - sealed up for eight years under a US-led deal - could be restarted and operational within two months.
The North Koreans have unsealed and removed UN monitoring equipment from the reactor and have already moved 1,000 fuel rods to the plant.
The head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, said the Yongbyon plant could be directly used to manufacture nuclear weapons
"We have no way to verify the nature of the activity," he warned.
Mr ElBaradei described North Korea's actions as "tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship".
He said North Korea had no legitimate peaceful use for plutonium, and that the amount of electricity the Yongbyon plant could generate for civilian use was negligible.
North Korea has said the reactor will help meet its electricity needs.
US demands
A number of Western countries - including Australia - strengthened ties with North Korea after a summit meeting between the two Koreas two years ago.
But Pyongyang's relations with both neighbouring states and the West have been increasingly tense since October, when the US announced that North Korea had admitted to a secret nuclear arms programme.
Washington said on Thursday that the resumption of work at Yongbyon "would compound North Korea's violations of its international commitments".
"We call on North Korea to immediately allow the IAEA to replace or restore the seals and cameras that the North has damaged" at the reactor, a US State Department spokeswoman said.
South Korea has called for more diplomatic efforts to avert a crisis in the peninsula.
President Kim Dae-jung told his National Security Council that Seoul must work with Washington and Tokyo to stop the situation deteriorating.
The Yongbyon reactor was closed down as part of an American-led fuel aid deal.
The 1994 deal broke down last month when the US suspended shipments in protest at moves by the North to revive its nuclear programme.
Although the North Koreans have disabled surveillance equipment at the plant, two IAEA inspectors are still in the country, monitoring the situation.
Then why disable the cameras??
More Europeans protested the U.S.S Harry Truman battlegroup passing through the French port of Marseilles this week on their way to their UN-sanctions-monitoring station off the coast of Iraq than have EVER protested North Korea's acquisition of atomic weapons and threats of nuclear blackmail...
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