IAEA to Detail S. Korea’s Secret Uranium Project

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The New York Sun

WASHINGTON – A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will report in the coming week on South Korea’s secret uranium enrichment project, which went unreported to the international agency until earlier this year.


The disclosures of a laboratory experiment to enrich the fuel used to make atomic weapons could renew tensions between Seoul and her neighbor to the north. In 2002, North Korean emissaries told American diplomats that their government had a clandestine nuclear program. In subsequent six-party talks, North Korea’s envoys have threatened to test a nuclear device, but have not followed through.


A statement from the South Koreans said the experiment was not cleared with senior members of the government and Seoul would “take measures to prevent similar things from happening in the future.” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told re porters yesterday that South Korea initially reported the laser isotope experiment to the IAEA as part of their accession to additional inspection protocols associated with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty in February of this year.


“The South Korean government is cooperating fully and proactively in order to demonstrate that the activity has been eliminated and it is no longer cause for concern,” Mr. Boucher said. “Their transparency and cooperation in resolving this matter is a strong example of how states should respond in complying with their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”


The executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Henry Sokolski, told The New York Sun yesterday, “This confirms the IAEA’s own candid assessment that without the cooperation of a violating country, they frequently will not be able to know about the violation in the first instance. This suggests why we should be so worried about countries like Iran.”


Mr. Sokolski noted that it was likely South Korea’s violation would be reported not only to the world’s atomic energy body, but the U.N. Security Council.


“It’s odd that the U.N. Security Council would deal with a case that is of little concern, but not get any report so far of Iran, which threatens to be a model of proliferation for every would-be bomb maker.”


The latest disclosures on the South Korean experiment come as America and other members of the IAEA are making a push to bring sanctions against Iran. The sixth interim report from the U.N. agency continues to report Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate fully with inspectors who landed in the country in 2003 after Iran admitted to operating a much larger enrichment program it had kept from the U.N. agency.


A former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation under President Clinton, Robert Einhorn, told the Sun that Iran’s violations are far more serious than the ones the public has learned about regarding South Korea.


“This is not even close to what the Iranians have done,” he said. “The Iranians were engaged at the most senior government level direction in violations for 18 years in a very large-scale program, the IAEA has documented a large number violations of Iran’s agreements with the IAEA. This seems to be a case where a scientist is apparently doing things that could be reported and was not the same as being reported.”


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