From Deseret News archives:
North Korea says it harvested fuel rods for nuclear weapons
But intelligence and Pentagon officials said that as of late Wednesday they had seen no evidence to confirm or disprove the assertion, and outside experts expressed skepticism that the North's action, even if confirmed, would significantly increase its weapons stockpile.
In a statement, the North said that it had removed 8,000 spent fuel rods from a reactor at its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon as a "necessary measure to bolster its nuclear arsenal."
In the worst-case scenario, experts have said, by removing and reprocessing the fuel rods, North Korea could produce fuel-grade plutonium for a few nuclear weapons. But their suspicions were aroused because by leaving the rods inside the reactor for another year, the North could have obtained a much better yield of weapons fuel.
"There is a lot of symbolism and taunting here," one senior administration official said.
North Korea expelled international inspectors in late 2002, and without them, it is impossible to independently verify its claims. Both outside analysts and administration officials note that North Korean leaders could be bluffing in an attempt to wrest concessions from the United States in long-stalled six-party negotiations to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.
Or, they said, the North Koreans could have pulled the fuel from the reactor early because of technical problems, or because of fears that the United States would order a strike on the reactor, a step that President Clinton considered in 1994, during a previous crisis.
But the shutdown of the reactor about a month ago and Wednesday's statement appear to be part of a North Korean effort to convince the world that it is already a nuclear weapons state, capable of both producing weapons and supplying itself with weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea declared for the first time on Feb. 10 that it possessed nuclear weapons.
The five megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, the country's tightly-guarded nuclear complex, was probably shut down in early April. By late last month a debate broke out in the American intelligence agencies over whether the shutdown was prompted by a need to perform maintenance, or a move to extract the rods. Last week, two officials, one American and one foreign, reported that a platform and large crates were seen near the reactor.
