North Korea is repudiating at least one road to nuclear power by destroying its nuclear power plant at Yongbyon.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (CNN) — North Korea on Friday destroyed a water cooling tower at a facility where officials acknowledge they extracted plutonium to build nuclear weapons, CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reported from the scene.
The massive implosion, which came at about 5pm local time Friday at the Yongbyon facility, was intended to be a powerful public symbol of a move to end nuclear activities by the Communist nation….
The destruction of the highly visible symbol of North Korea’s long-secret nuclear program came just a day after the country released details of its program.
A signal flare gave a three-minute warning as U.S. State Department officials and observers from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) watched from a reviewing stand.
“This is a very significant disablement step,” the U.S. envoy to North Korea, Sung Kim, said.
Nuclear experts say that the plant’s destroyed central water-cooling tower would take a year or longer to rebuild if North Korea were to try using the plant again.
“This is a critical piece of equipment for the nuclear reactor,” said analyst John Wolfsthal, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has been following North Korea since the 1980s. “Without this facility, the reactor can’t operate and can’t produce more plutonium for weapons.”
North Korea has been dismantling other parts of the facility under the watchful eyes of representatives of the five other nations, including the U.S., that have been involved in six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
On Thursday, North Korean officials turned over to China a 60-page declaration, written in English, that details several rounds of plutonium production at the Yongbyon plant dating back to 1986.
In it, North Korea acknowledges producing roughly 40 kilograms of enriched plutonium — enough for about seven nuclear bombs, according to the U.S. State Department.
In response, Bush said he would lift some U.S. sanctions against North Korea and remove the country from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Friday, 27 June 2008 at 09:04
That water tower was for water to use if the reactor had to be shut down in a hurry. Nothing to do with the reactor. Might keep some one from putting a bomb in the reactor in that those of us who want North Korea are not so inhuman as to bomb the reactor with out water to flood.