By DPA
Vienna : Once North Korea’s nuclear complex at Yongbyong has been shut down, it will take the country about a year to rebuild the facilities, the US has said.
“With the set of all agreed disablement activities completed, the US believes it would take about one year to reconstitute the three facilities,” US Ambassador Greg Schulte said Thursday at the winter meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In the six-party agreement of Feb 13, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme in exchange for fuel deliveries and economic aid.
North Korea agreed with the US, Japan, South Korea, Russia and China to dismantle its three nuclear facilities by the end of 2007, provide a complete list of fissile material and provide evidence to counter US accusations that it had been pursuing a secret uranium enrichment programme.
The six parties had kept a tight lid on technical details regarding the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear facilities, making Thursday’s statement a rare exception.
A technical expert team has been working at the Yongbyong site since Nov 3 on a series of measures to disable a five-megawatt reactor, the radio-chemical laboratory and the fuel fabrication plant situated at the site, the US statement said.
“One of the most important disablement steps will involve the discharge of fuel currently in the 5 MW (e) reactor to the spent fuel pond. US experts are working to ensure a safe discharge to the pool that will not cause problems for future disposition of the spent fuel and in a way consistent with verification requirements,” Schulte told the IAEA board members.
IAEA inspectors were thrown out of the country in December 2003 and could only return this summer. In October 2005 the communist state announced it had successfully conducted a test of a nuclear device.