By KUNA,
Tokyo : South Korea has yet to decide whether to buy unused fuel rods stored at North Korea’s main nuclear site, Seoul’s Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday, citing a government official who headed to Pyongyang for discussions on handling the fissile material.
North Korea said earlier that it has some 14,000 unused fuel rods, each one measuring about 60 centimeters long, at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, about 90 kilometers from capital Pyongyang.
The total amount is reportedly equivalent to 100 tons of uranium.
Removing them from a plutonium-producing reactor there is the last of 11 steps in disabling the plant under Pyongyang’s aid-for-denuclearization deal in 2007 with South Korea, the US, China, Russia, and Japan.
“A decision on how to deal with the unused fuel rods will be made through six-party consultations based on the results of our visit,” Hwang Joon-kook, head of the Foreign Ministry’s North Korean nuclear affairs bureau, told reporters before leaving Seoul, according to Yonhap.
Hwang leads a six-member team tasked with assessing the economic value and technical aspects of the fuel rods.
The fact-finding group includes three South Korean nuclear experts.
“Nothing has been decided on whether the unused fuel rods will be scrapped or sold to a certain country,” he was quoted as saying.
The cash-strapped North Korea has indicated that it prefers selling the unused rods, and South Korea is a potential buyer of the materials for use at its nuclear plants, the report added.