Seoul probes N. Korea nuke reports
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Satellite image of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility.
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SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea is investigating, but has yet to confirm, reports of fresh activity this month at North Korea's main nuclear center at Yongbyon, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun told reporters on Thursday.
South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper quoted U.S. and South Korean officials as saying an American intelligence satellite detected fumes rising from a coal-fired boiler at the nuclear lab at Yongbyon. The fumes were traced on four days this month.
Yongbyon, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital Pyongyang, contains a nuclear reactor and a plutonium reprocessing plant at the center of the year-long crisis over the secretive communist state's attempts to build nuclear weapons.
"We are trying to confirm the activities, but at this stage I have no definitive information to disclose," Jeong told reporters at his weekly news conference in Seoul.
JoongAng Ilbo said the fumes were detected on December 2, 3, 4 and 7, and that a truck was spotted travelling in and out of the premises of Yongbyon's five-megawatt nuclear reactor.
North Korea said in July it had completed reprocessing of 8,000 fuel rods to extract plutonium for bombmaking. The rods had been sealed and monitored by United Nations experts from 1994 until Pyongyang expelled the monitors in December 2002.
North Korea further raised tensions on the peninsula in October, when it said it would reprocess additional fuel rods to strengthen its nuclear deterrent.
The latest report comes as the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia are trying to convene a second round of six-way talks on the nuclear dispute with North Korea to follow an inconclusive first round in August.
On Tuesday, Pyongyang said it would freeze its program in return for Washington providing energy aid and removing it from a list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
U.S. President George W. Bush rejected the offer saying only an irreversible, verifiable dismantling of the program would be acceptable. (Nuclear deal rejected)
The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when Washington said Pyongyang had said it had a covert nuclear program in addition to the project at Yongbyon.
Copyright 2003
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
