"Spent Fuel Canisters Reprocessing Completed"

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry official announced yesterday, “We have shifted the use of extracted plutonium in order to strengthen nuclear deterrence by reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel canisters completely.”

According to the North Korean Chosun Joongang Press, the spokesman of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, mentioning, “The continuous surging spent fuel canisters from 5MW-level atomic reactor in Youngbyun (Pyonganbuk-do) will be also reprocessed without delay, all in good time.“

With all 8,000 spent fuel canisters being reprocessed, it is possible to extract plutonium of which three or four nuclear weapons can be made.

“If the United States doesn’t give up it’s hostile attitude against us, we will maintain and even fortify our nuclear deterrence as a means of self-defense against possible preemptive strike from the U.S. and for the peace of Korean Peninsula, which was already determined by the first session in the 11th Supreme People’s Assembly last month,” the spokesman stressed.

He added, “The U.S. may have such a naïve thought if they take North Korea as being captured by an illusion of six-party talks, which seems to make us freeze the nuclear facilities and abandon nuclear deterrence.”

He also claimed, “By way of Beijing’s six-party talks, we came to realize clearly that U.S. has no intention to share the world peace with us, but rather, they keep their stance on dismantling us completely.”

Regarding the second session of a six-way talks forecasted for October and November, he turned down, saying, “We didn’t promise anything to anyone about the next conference. That statement (on talks in October or November) is a boundless rumor.”

Last April, the North Korean Foreign Ministry reported that “8,000 spent fuel canisters have been successfully reprocessed to the last stage.”

Meanwhile, having received the NK’s statement the same day, a South Korean Government official said, “It must be a false source since we haven’t heard such information until now”. “It could be a strategy for enhancing negotiations ahead of the second 6-way talks.” he analyzed.

Seung-Ryun Kim srkim@donga.com