Foreign News Media’s “Korea Bashing”

Foreign news agencies reported the mounting criticism of the international community as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that South Korea produced 150 kilograms of uranium metal in the 1980s at one of its three undisclosed facilities.

Quoting a diplomat close to the IAEA, the AP reported that the three facilities were the subject of report. It also said the uranium enrichment experiments with uranium metal produced 20 years ago suggests a long-term plan aimed at the enrichment.

Reuters also quoted a diplomat as saying, "It looks as if the planning and preparation (for the experiments) went back much further and appears to have been far more calculated than the South Koreans would like the agency to believe."

It quoted another diplomat regarding the idea that the South Korean government was entirely ignorant of the expensive experiments being conducted by government scientists at state-funded laboratories as "nonsense."

It added that diplomats have said that since the story broke, South Korea appears to have violated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and will eventually be reported to the U.N. Security Council.

Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun said although the Korean government argued that because the experiments were private experiments conducted by a small number of scientists, it is suspicious that the nuclear development was attempted at a national level as it was revealed that the government did not reveal the production of uranium.

Tokyo Shimbun said that since many IAEA directors think the agency should not be generous to South Korea when it is strict towards Iran, pressure on South Korea will rise.

Won-Jae Park Jin Lee parkwj@donga.com leej@donga.com