By IRNA-Yonhap
Seoul : The South Korean government is considering bringing nuclear fuel rods stored at North Korea’s key nuclear facilities at Yongbyon to South Korea for possible domestic use, a government source said Sunday.
“When the process for scrapping North Korea’s nuclear program reaches the dismantlement phase, a critical decision over how to dispose of the North’s nuclear fuel rods as well as spent fuel rods has to be made,” said the source.
“Bringing the North Korean fuel rods into the South is one of the options now under consideration,” the source said.
The possible relocation would effectively remove weapons-grade plutonium materials from communist North Korea and provide the South with opportunities to use them as fuel at local atomic power plants, he noted.
“Prior to the possible relocation, a study has to be completed over whether the North Korean fuel rods can be used by South Korean nuclear power plants.
Depending on the study, therefore, the relocation of the North Korean fuel rods to a third country could be put on the agenda of the future .six-party talks,” said the source.
Under a deal signed with South Korea, the US, Japan, China and Russia in February, North Korea is to shut down and disable the Yongbyon facilities and submit a full report of its nuclear programs in exchange for 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil and political benefits including Pyongyang’s normalization of ties with Washington and Tokyo.
North Korea shut down the facilities in July, and under a separate deal signed in the six-way negotiations last month, the US agreed to remove the North from its list of state sponsors of terrorism “in parallel” with the North’s second phase of denuclearization, including disablement of its nuclear facilities and declaration of all its nuclear programs.
A U. S. team of nuclear experts visiting North Korea is now reportedly in the process of purifying water tanks capable of storing spent fuel rods, prior to removal of about 8,000 spent fuel rods from a 5 megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.
Meanwhile, Washington’s chief nuclear negotiator, Christopher Hill, is set to make a rare trip to Pyongyang this week to discuss the disablement of the North’s nuclear facilities and declaration of all ts nuclear programs by year’s end under the multinational deal.