North Korea Breaks I.A.E.A. Seals on 8,000 Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods (BREAKING)

North Korea has removed the seals and surveillance cameras installed to monitor the storage facilities containing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that had been closely watched by the IAEA. A couple of days ago, the North also eliminated all IAEA`s inspection devices set up at the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.

What makes the latest move of North more serious is the fact that the fuel rods have nothing do to with generation of electricity and can produce plutonium, which in turn can produce nuclear weapons. Therefore, the situation is spinning more and more out of control.

So far, it is believed, North Korea has dismantled surveillance devices at two of its 5 nuclear facilities whose operation had been frozen under the 1994 arms control accord in Geneva. The five facilities are the 5MW nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, the storage facility containing 8,000 spent fuel rods, the 50MW nuclear reactor whose construction was supposed to be completed sometime between 1995 and 1996, the 200MW reactor in Taechon, Pyongbook, and the radiochemical laboratory in Yongbyon

The IAEA announced on Sunday, "North Korea has taken additional actions to hinder the operation of the inspection devices on the storage facility of the nuclear wastes containing the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. The storage facility is the number one target of our inspection activities."

IAEA`s Secretary General, Mohammed Elbaradei criticized, "The rods contain a considerable amount of plutonium. Therefore, it is a matter of grave concern in connection with the nonproliferation. The action North Korea took this time poses a profound hindrance to IAEA`s inspection activities to prevent the conversion of the nuclear material extracted from the spent fuel rods into production of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosives."

Experts believe that the 8,000 fuel rods could produce 25kg of plutonium #239, which in turn could suffice to produce at lease three nuclear warheads, reported the AFP.

The facility whose seals were broken this time is in vicinity of the 5MW nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. The IAEA had double-sealed the spent fuel rods in stainless containers, and stored them in water tanks with surveillance cameras rolling over them.

One senior South Korean official said, "The IAEA bound 400 stainless containers and hang them on ropes connected above water in such a way that, if a person other than an inspector tried to temper with them, the trace must be left behind. It were these seals that North broke this time. The fuel rods, however, are still in the water tank."

North Korea`s state-run Central Agency reported on December 22 that North Korean regime started removing IAEA`s seals and surveillance cameras that had been set up under the Geneva accord. The agency announced that this action was caused by the United States` discontinuance of the fuel oil shipment.

At first, North Korea, through its Foreign Ministry spokesperson, announced that it would reactivate its nuclear program. Then, on December 21, it removed the seals and cameras on the 5MW reactor in Yongbyon.

Yesterday, South Korean government, through the comments of the Foreign Ministry, demanded, "The additional action on the part of North Korea may increase tension over the Korean Peninsula, and will amplify the concern of the international community over the nonproliferation issue."

The New York Times, citing a senior Bush administration official, reported yesterday that the United States government might consider "non-diplomatic" reactions if North got closer and closer to production of a nuclear weapon.

US State Department spokesperson also warned on Sunday that this action had caused a more serious consequence.

In the meanwhile, the Japanese government defined the removal of the seals as a violation of the 1994 accord, and protested against North Korea`s action via its embassy in Beijing.

SEOUL, South Korea -- The U.N. nuclear watchdog said it deplores North Korea's decision to remove U.N. seals and surveillance cameras from nuclear facilities that U.S. officials say could yield weapons within months. Washington and its allies urged Pyongyang to rescind its decision.

North Korea on Monday began removing U.N. seals and "disrupting" cameras at a laboratory used to extract weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel rods, said the U.N. agency acting as the world's nuclear watchdog.

"There isn't any legitimate purpose for the facility other than separating plutonium from spent fuel," a step in the process of making nuclear weapons, said Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.

North Korea indicated Monday the "nuclear issue" could be settled if the United States agrees to a longstanding demand for a nonaggression treaty.

"The U.S. should stop posing a nuclear threat to the DPRK and accept the DPRK's proposal for the conclusion of a nonaggression treaty between the two countries," the North's official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in an editorial. DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The United States, which is South Korea's chief ally, says it wants a diplomatic solution, but opposes talks unless North Korea first abandons nuclear weapons development.

North Korea's nuclear ambitions also dominated a previously arranged Monday meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and successor Roh Moo-hyun, who won last week's election. Roh, who takes office in February, has advocated dialogue to resolve the nuclear problem.

The IAEA, which has been monitoring the facilities, said Pyongyang this weekend unsealed a spent fuel storage chamber that holds 8,000 irradiated fuel rods.

"If they restart them, particularly the reprocessing plant, which will start producing plutonium, then we are in a pretty dangerous situation," Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA director-general, said Monday on CNN.

ElBaradei said he has discussed the situation with North Korea's neighbors, the United States and members of the U.N. Security Council.

"Nobody would like to negotiate under a nuclear brinkmanship and that's what's happening right now," he said.

State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said, "The 8000-odd spent fuel rods are of particular concern because they could be reprocessed to recover plutonium for nuclear weapons."

Pyongyang's move Sunday raised fears of a nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula similar to one involving the same facilities in 1994. At that time, officials in Seoul and Washington feared a heightened possibility of war with North Korea.

Conflict was averted when North Korea agreed to freeze the facilities in a deal with the United States. But it said Dec. 12 that it planned to reactivate them to produce electricity because Washington had failed to follow through on a pledge to provide energy.

North Korea said the Vienna-based IAEA failed to respond to its request to remove the equipment, compelling it to do so itself.

The IAEA said the seals and surveillance equipment had been removed from the spent fuel pond, which stores the fuel rods, at the 5-megawatt, Soviet-designed reactor in Yongbyon, 50 miles north of Pyongyang.

Fintor said spent fuel rods had "no relevance" for generating electricity. Their unsealing "belies North Korea's announced justification to produce electricity," he said.

Security experts believe North Korea made one or two nuclear weapons using plutonium it extracted from the Yongbyon reactor in the 1990s. Now there are fears it will reprocess plutonium fuel rods that were separated from the Yongbyon reactor, and later stored under supervision by IAEA inspectors.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday that diplomatic efforts are under way between North Korea, its neighbors and the United States.

"There are a variety of interactions taking place," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers told a Pentagon news conference Monday that North Korea's claim it needs electricity from the nuclear plants does not hold up to analysis.

"They don't need a nuclear power plant," Rumsfeld said. "They couldn't even absorb that."

Myers said the plant "adds negligible electricity to the power grid."

South Korea, Japan, and France have strongly criticized the North Korean action.

Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev confirmed Monday that North Korea started relaunching its nuclear program and also expressed regret over the decision, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. He also was quoted as saying the U.N. nuclear watchdog "has not given a proper assessment to this fact as yet."

The announcement by the North's state-run news agency, KCNA, that the monitoring equipment was being removed was part of a dispute that has been escalating since October, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted it had a secret nuclear weapons program based on uranium enrichment.

The program violated several nuclear arms control agreements, and Washington and its allies suspended shipments of heavy fuel oil to the energy-starved country that were required under the 1994 deal. Instead of giving up its nuclear program, Pyongyang said it had no choice but to revive old nuclear facilities that were frozen under the same agreement.

WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday that North Korea would be mistaken if it felt emboldened by Washington's focus on Iraq to pursue its own quest for nuclear weapons.

Asked if North Korea might be seeking to exploit U.S. attention on Iraq to re-start its nuclear weapons program, Rumsfeld said, "If they do, it would be a mistake."

He said the United States was able to wage two regional conflicts at the same time.

"We are capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other," he said at a Pentagon briefing. "Let there be no doubt about it."

North Korea confirmed on Sunday it had begun removing U.N. seals and cameras at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which was idled in a watershed deal with the United States eight years ago. It said it did so to generate electricity.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday consulted France, Russia and Britain about the situation and said the United States wanted a peaceful resolution, said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker. Over the weekend, Powell discussed the issue with Chinese, South Korean, Russian and Japanese officials among others.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday that North Korea had disabled surveillance devices the agency had placed at the Yongbyon reactor. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency later said seals and monitoring cameras were being removed "from the frozen nuclear facilities for their normal operation to produce electricity."

The IAEA also said North Korea had broken seals on about 8,000 spent fuel rods at Yongbyon which Washington and its allies fear could be used to produce plutonium for weapons. The CIA has previously estimated North Korea had enough plutonium produced before 1992 to make one or two nuclear weapons.

"Everybody is supportive of the IAEA view that North Korea's actions raise serious concerns and certainly belies their announced justification to produce electricity," Reeker said. "Spent fuel rods can be (used) to produce plutonium but they have no relevance to electricity generation."

"They are violating their responsibilities ... and we're not going to respond to threats or broken commitments," Reeker added. "We do want a peaceful resolution."

Unlike its stance on Iraq, which Washington has threatened with war if it fails to give up its suspected weapons of mass destruction programs, the United States has said it wants a peaceful resolution with North Korea since Pyongyang told U.S. officials in October it had a secret nuclear weapons program.

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