South Koreans Say Secret Work Refined Uranium

[Felix The Assassin]

Houston, we might have a problem here!


South Koreans Say Secret Work Refined Uranium
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: September 3, 2004

The South Korean government has admitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency that a group of the country's scientists secretly produced a small amount of near-weapons grade uranium, raising suspicions that South Korea may have attempted a secret program to counter North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

Advertisement

The revelation, made 11 days ago and disclosed by the agency yesterday, could greatly complicate the confrontation with North Korea over its own nuclear weapons program. President Bush regularly calls for a "nuclear-free Korean peninsula," and those calls have been endorsed by South Korea, one of Washington's closest Asian allies.

In a statement, the South Korean government said the highly enriched uranium was produced by a group of rogue scientists in 2000, without the knowledge of the government. But many details of the effort, which was an apparent violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, remain murky, and the method the scientists used was so expensive that it is normally associated with government-directed weapons programs. Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said yesterday that it "is important that all such activity be investigated," adding that after the I.A.E.A. completed a review the United States "will be able to draw the appropriate conclusions."

According to international diplomats with knowledge of the South Korean disclosure, the government admitted to the experiment only after energy agency inspectors began asking pointed questions about a piece of equipment in a building in Taejon, a South Korean scientific center, that they had been barred from visiting. It was unclear how they had learned of the existence of the equipment. "It became clear to the South Koreans that there would be environmental samples taken, and the truth would be discovered," one of the diplomats said. "So they decided they better disclose it first, themselves." That disclosure took place on Aug. 23. The South Korean government has not yet explained how it learned of the work of the scientists.

While the amount of uranium that South Korea has admitted to enriching was very small, about two-tenths of a gram, it was enriched to nearly 80 percent - a level so high that experts said it was difficult to imagine that it would be useful for anything other than making nuclear weapons. It would take several kilograms to make even a crude nuclear weapon. When it was disclosed last year that Iran used a similar method to try to enrich uranium - though with significantly larger quantities - the Bush administration said that effort was clear evidence that Tehran was seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Boucher declined to draw that conclusion on Thursday about South Korea, noting that it had disclosed its own violation. But a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency was rushed to the country last week, and is now conducting tests to determine if the country has fully disclosed what it produced.

South Korea recently agreed to a set of more intensive inspections by the agency, and the inspectors were in the country to perform them.

It was unclear whether the scientists who were involved in what South Korea called a "laboratory experiment" were government employees or workers for the country's civilian nuclear industry. A South Korean government statement said the experiment was intended for research on civilian fuel production, but outside experts said that seemed improbable.

There was no response yet from North Korea, and Mr. Boucher said it was not clear that the discovery would hinder the diplomatic effort to pressure the North to disarm. But several other administration officials disagreed, saying the disclosure would probably have significant propaganda value for the North, which withdrew from the nonproliferation treaty 18 months ago. It can now claim that the South had also introduced weapons-grade material to the Korean peninsula.

North Korea is estimated to have enough plutonium to produce two to eight nuclear weapons, and Washington has accused it of having a second, secret uranium enrichment program of its own. North Korea denies it has such a program.