- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
prominent U.S. scientist who visited North Korea's nuclear facilities said
on Wednesday he was not convinced the communist state could turn its nuclear
technology into a weapon or mount it on a missile.
-
- But Siegfried Hecker, former head of Los Alamos National
Laboratory, one of America's top nuclear research facilities, said Pyongyang's
program, which Washington is trying to halt, was still of great concern.
-
- Hecker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that
North Korea probably could make plutonium metal, a key weapon ingredient,
and that 8,000 spent fuel rods that could be used to produce fuel for nuclear
bombs were missing from a storage area at the country's nuclear complex
at Yongbyon.
-
- He also said that a plant for reprocessing nuclear bomb-grade
fuel was in good repair, that North Korean scientists had the technical
expertise needed for reprocessing plutonium, and that a five megawatt nuclear
reactor was "operating smoothly" and adding to the North's plutonium
cache by 6 kilograms a year.
-
- The United States has long asserted the North has enough
plutonium for at least one or two nuclear weapons. If the 8,000 spent fuel
rods were reprocessed between January and June 2003 as Pyongyang says,
that would fuel at least half dozen more bombs, experts say.
-
- Hecker was speaking in public for the first time since
he and other members of an unofficial U.S. delegation, including former
U.S. envoy to North Korea Charles "Jack" Pritchard, paid an unprecedented
visit to Yongbyon at Pyongyang's invitation two weeks ago.
-
- "NUCLEAR WEAPON STATE?"
-
- Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel's ranking Democrat
who attended a closed-door briefing with Hecker on Tuesday, said the North
"appears to be well along the path toward becoming a full-fledged
nuclear weapon state."
-
- In the public session, Hecker said the North Koreans
hoped the visit would prove their nuclear capability and strengthen their
hand in negotiations with the United States, which is working with four
other regional states to negotiate an end to the programs.
-
- But despite unique access to Yongbyon and detailed talks
with nuclear engineers, Hecker said he still had "uncertainties"
about Pyongyang's program.
-
- The North showed it "most likely had the capability
to make plutonium metal," a prerequisite for nuclear weapons, he said.
-
- "However, I saw nothing and spoke to no one who
could convince me that they could build a nuclear device with that metal
and that they could weaponize such a device into a delivery vehicle,"
such as a missile, he said.
-
- The North Koreans took the "extraordinary step"
of displaying two glass jars housed in a wooden box inside a metal case
that they claimed contained plutonium reprocessed last year from the 8,000
spent fuel rods, he said.
-
- One glass jar reportedly contained 150 grams of plutonium
oxalate powder and the other, 200 grams of plutonium metal.
-
- Hecker held one jar in his hands, gloved for safety,
to get a feel for density and heat content and said "it certainly
was consistent with the way plutonium (metal) looks."
-
- But as he was not able to do all the necessary scientific
measuring, Hecker said he could not be more conclusive or say if the substance
came from reprocessing in 2003.
-
- He confirmed the spent fuel rods were gone from the holding
pond because canisters in which they were stored were missing or open.
-
- It is possible that instead of reprocessing these rods,
the North Koreans moved them to a different storage venue but that would
be dangerous and "make no sense," Hecker said.
-
- Although Yongbyon's 5 megawatt nuclear reactor produces
6 kilograms of plutonium annually, the North could not soon accelerate
plutonium production beyond that because two larger reactors have not been
completed, he said.
-
- Hecker stressed the need for clarity about North Korea's
program as "ambiguities often lead to miscalculations" and with
nuclear weapons, this "could be disastrous."
-
- The United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan
for months have tried to arrange a further round of negotiations on curbing
the North's nuclear ambitions, after a first round ended inconclusively
last August.
-
-
- Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
|
