"...message has just received from the captain of the USS John Paul Jones, Mr Secretary. It reads, 'Pyongyang delivery is on its way'....."
Posted on 02/15/2003 9:29:06 PM PST by conservativecorner
North Korea's director of energy has revealed plans to build four more nuclear plants, each bigger and more powerful than the controversial Yongbyon plant that America fears may be used to develop nuclear weapons.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Kim Jae Rok claimed that "desperate measures" were called for because much of North Korea is without heat or lighting.
He said that the planned nuclear plants could produce up to 200 megawatts of power - 40 times the output of Yongbyon.
"This will enable us to meet the urgent need for electricity supplies in our country," said Mr Kim from his warm, brightly-lit office in the capital, Pyongyang.
While North Korea was in festive mood this weekend, celebrating the 61st birthday today of its leader, Kim Jong-Il, news of the expansion plans will cause fresh alarm in America where intelligence agencies fear the regime could be producing nuclear weapons.
Last week George Tenet, the director of the CIA, warned for the first time that North Korea might already be capable of hitting the west coast of the United States with a nuclear missile.
As the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, ruled that North Korea had breached nuclear safeguards, Mr Tenet said that the North Koreans probably had "one or two plutonium-based devices".
Tension between North Korea and the West started to escalate last October when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted pursuing a secret programme to enrich uranium, breaching an agreement struck in 1994 not to pursue the development of nuclear weapons.
In December, the UN confirmed that North Korea had begun shipping fuel rods to the Yongbyon reactor which could be used to produce plutonium. At the same time, Pyongyang expelled two IAEA inspectors and said it planned to reopen a reprocessing plant that could turn spent nuclear fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium within months.
Satellite images of the Yongbyon complex released recently by Washington showed cargo trucks moving around the site. A number of intelligence analysts said the pictures suggested that depleted nuclear fuel was being stored there.
The IAEA has asked the UN Security Council to consider North Korea's breach of nuclear safeguards, the strongest sanction it can impose. The Security Council has the power to impose economic or political sanctions against North Korea, which Pyongyang has previously said it would consider tantamount to a declaration of war.
There is international pressure to avoid sanctions, which are opposed by the European Union and many of North Korea's neighbours, including China, Japan and South Korea.
They believe that diplomacy rather than confrontation is the way forward, a view shared by Mohamed El-Baradei, the director general of the IAEA.
Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said the EU was prepared to send a delegation to North Korea to resolve the crisis.
Mr Kim insisted that North Korea was not producing nuclear weapons in its present facilities and would not use the planned new plants to do so. It is, however, difficult to see where the power already produced at Yongbyon is being used. In a country roughly the size of the United Kingdom, few people have access to a basic electricity supply, let alone consumer electronics.
Mike Thomson is a correspondent on BBC Radio 4's Today programme
It's been without heat or lighting for over a half century, so why all of a sudden the complaining?
"...message has just received from the captain of the USS John Paul Jones, Mr Secretary. It reads, 'Pyongyang delivery is on its way'....."
Why can't these people try windmills and solar panels?
I can't wait to hear see what move of the NK's is going to be in their effort to blackmail us. Maybe they will announce that they will be building anthrax production facilities next to each reactor. Man, they are really asking for a visit from the USAF.
Talking about sending a message, defectors say Kim Jong-Il is an obsessive Net head, who runs searches on his own name to see what Westerners are saying about him. Who knows? He might even log onto FR.
I recall reading that the Yongbyon nuclear plant had no transmission lines attached to it. Anyone know whether that is true?
What's stopping you? Go ahead, send your delegation, magically resolve it all. Just don't ask for anything from us, because we aren't giving. If you don't like the US policing the world against nuclear proliferation, try policing it yourselves. Best of luck to you. In a month, you will be sitting there with a comical look on your face, and the NKs will be laughing at you. Pacifists who don't want to be nuked don't have a whole lot to bargain with. Whatever you offer, they will take it - and go right on doing what they are doing.
Under current environment, it would be difficult to find outside takers who would pay enough money to build these reactors. They will get bombed or face other dire situations before they see their sales proceed coming in. Internally, they do not have enough money for this project, previous cash payment from S. Korea not withstanding.
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