The North Korean nuclear threat returns to the international and American agenda after a relatively long silence. The latest annual report by the IAEA, the international atomic energy agency of the UN, in fact highlighted a resumption of operations of the main North Korean nuclear reactor, 5 megawatts of power, in the Yongbyon complex, north of the capital Pyongyang. . The reactor, of which there was no news from December 2018, produces plutonium, one of the two key “ingredients” to build the atomic bomb together with enriched uranium (also produced in Yongbyon).
“Violate UN resolutions”
“Since the beginning of July 2021 – the report reads – indications have arrived that are compatible with the operation of the reactor, including the discharge of cooling water”; indications that are added to those, detected between February and July, of activity in the radiochemical laboratory of Yongbyon, used to supply heat to the reprocessing structure of spent fuel rods (from which, in fact, the plutonium is extracted). The IAEA report specifies that five months, the detected duration of the operation of the plant and the radiochemical laboratory in 2021, is a significantly longer period than that observed in the past, during simple waste treatment or maintenance activities. “The continuation of North Korea’s nuclear program – is therefore the conclusion – is a clear violation of the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and is deeply regrettable”.
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The IAEA has not had access to Yongbyon or other North Korean nuclear sites since 2009, when the Kim Jong-un regime decided to expel its inspectors; since then the UN agency has mainly used satellite images to monitor the developments of the North Korean program which, moreover, no longer relies solely on the Yongbyon complex, once the flagship and only source of production of fissile material.
The reactor that Kim proposed to shut down
In early 2019, during a summit with then US President Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un proposed dismantling Yongbyon in exchange for a substantial reduction in international sanctions on the North Korean nuclear and missile program, but Trump refused with the objection that the complex was now only a part of Pyongyang’s program. Subsequent talks also yielded no results and Pyongyang has since continued to enrich its nuclear arsenal, perhaps with the intention of increasing its negotiating power in the event of a resumption of talks with a new US administration (today experts estimate that Korea of the North has material to produce at least six bombs a year).
The resumption of reactor and complex activities – activities related to the production of plutonium, which experts describe as those more easily identifiable via satellite than uranium enrichment – could therefore also be a first step, albeit traditionally aggressive, to return to the negotiating table.