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North Korea destroys nuclear reactor tower
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang and Burt Herman in Seoul, South Korea and Matthew Lee in Kyoto, Japan contributed to this report.





This image from television shows the demolition of the 60-foot-tall cooling tower at its main reactor complex in Yongbyon North Korea Friday June 27, 2008. North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program Friday in a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.
(AP Photo/APTN)

YONGBYON, North Korea (AP) — North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program Friday, blasting apart the cooling tower at its main atomic reactor in a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.

An explosion at the base of the cylindrical structure sent the tower collapsing into debris and dust that billowed into blue skies at 5:10 p.m. local time as journalists and diplomats looked on, according to footage filmed at the site by international video news agency Associated Press Television News.

The demolition of the 60-foot-tall cooling tower at the North's main reactor complex is a response to U.S. concessions after the North delivered a declaration Thursday of its nuclear programs to be dismantled.

"This is a very important step in the disablement process and I think it puts us in a good position to move into the next phase," said Sung Kim, the U.S. State Department's top expert on the Koreas who attended the demolition.

After the tower's tumble to the ground, Kim shook hands with Ri Yong Ho, director of safeguards at North Korea's Academy of Atomic Energy Research, who was the most senior Pyongyang official present.

"The demolition of the cooling tower is proof that the six-party talks have proceeded a step further," Ri said, referring to the nuclear negotiations.

The tower destruction was not mentioned by the North's media or shown on state TV broadcasts.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that North Korea had agreed to principles for verifying its declaration.

"The have agreed that every question that we have about their nuclear program — plutonium, uranium, proliferation — is something they have to answer," he said. "That would mean, if there is any place we want to visit, we should be allowed to visit, any person we want to talk to, we should be allowed to."

In the North Korean government's first reaction to the developments this week, North Korea's Foreign Ministry welcomed Washington's decision to take the country off the U.S. trade and sanctions blacklists.

"The U.S. measure should lead to a complete and all-out withdrawal of its hostile policy toward (the North) so that the denuclearization process can proceed smoothly," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The symbolic tower explosion came just 20 months after Pyongyang shocked the world by detonating a nuclear bomb in an underground test to confirm its status as an atomic power. The nuclear blast spurred an about-face in the U.S. hard-line policy against Pyongyang, leading to the North's first steps to scale back its nuclear weapons development since the reactor became operational in 1986.

Last year, the North switched off the reactor at Yongbyon, some 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang, and it already has begun disabling the facility under the watch of U.S. experts so that it cannot easily be restarted.

The destruction of the cooling tower, which carries off waste heat to the atmosphere, is another step forward but not the most technically significant, because it is a simple piece of equipment that would be easy to rebuild.

Still, the demolition offers the most photogenic moment yet in the disarmament negotiations that have dragged on for more than five years and suffered repeated deadlocks and delays.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the tower's destruction would mark a step toward disablement, something that has been ongoing for many months to prevent the North from making more plutonium for bombs.

"It is important to get North Korea out of the plutonium business, but that will not be the end of the story," she said in Kyoto, Japan, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries.

North Korea's nuclear declaration, which was delivered six months later than the country promised and has not yet been released publicly, is said to only give the overall figure for how much plutonium was produced at Yongbyon — but no details of bombs that may have been made.

Experts believe the North has produced up to 110 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for as many as 10 nuclear bombs.

The declaration was being distributed Friday by China, the chair of the arms talks, to the other countries involved, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said.

"We'll have to study it very carefully and then we'll have to work on verification," Hill said in Kyoto.

The declaration does not address the North's alleged uranium enrichment program or suspicions of its nuclear proliferation to other countries, such as Syria.

ap.google.com

__________________
"Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement." - Arvind Ganesan, Human Rights Watch.

"I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check" - M.C. Escher

Texpat

What a shame. It was fairly new too.

Didn't SecState Madeline Albright and Slick Willy get the same promises 15 years ago that were met with huge concessions? South Korea is still being shitty about it -- withholding food and energy aid.

Wonder where their new one is?

Norton

The significance in destroying the tower is to some degree symbolic. Indicates positive movement in solving the N. Korean nuc issue but still a fair way to go. N. Korea still has nuc weapons and a store of plutonium that need to be destroyed. This is supposed to happen soon?

Personally, I feel much safer now that the "evil empire" has one less member!

__________________
Eat right, exercise daily, live clean, die anyway.

Mid

revel in your newfound safteyness ...............

Mid

enough of the reveling


North Korea backs away from nuclear deal
Fri Sep 19, 2008
By Jack Kim



SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday it was working on restarting its nuclear plant and dismissed the prospect of being removed from a U.S. terrorism blacklist in return for a disarmament deal.

The North said it had begun work to rebuild the Soviet-era nuclear Yongbyon plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium that was being taken apart under a much-delayed disarmament-for-aid deal it reached with five regional powers, including Washington.

"The DPRK (North Korea) neither wishes to be delisted as a 'state sponsor of terrorism' nor expects such a thing to happen," the North's official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

Last month, North Korea said it planned to restart Yongbyon because it was angry at Washington for not taking it off its terrorism blacklist. In early September, it made minor but initial moves to restart the plant, U.S. officials said.

Washington has said it will remove Pyongyang from the list once the state allows inspectors to verify claims it made about its nuclear arms production. Once removed, the North can better tap into international finance and expand its meager trade.

Analysts have said the North might be trying to pressure the outgoing Bush administration as it looks for diplomatic successes to bolster its legacy. The North might also be thinking it can wait for a new U.S. president to try to get a better deal.

A South Korean official familiar with the talks said what lies ahead may be drawn-out negotiations but it did not mean Pyongyang was about to quit the deal for good.

"I believe there is continued interest (by the North) in the overall six-way process," the official said on the condition of anonymity.

The South Korean official said the North knows aid and disablement are linked. Energy-starved North Korea has been receiving partial shipments over the past several months of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil for previous progress it has made under the deal.

North Korea, which exploded a nuclear device about two years ago, began to disable Yongbyon in early November as called for in the deal it struck with China, the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

The disablement -- mostly completed except for a few key steps that involve both spent and unused nuclear fuel rods -- were aimed at putting Yongbyon out of the plutonium production business for at least a year.


"RESTORATION UNDER WAY"

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said in early September that North Korea informed regional powers and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had started work to restore its ageing nuclear plant.

On Friday, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by its KCNA news agency: "... work has been under way to restore its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon to their original state".

Proliferation experts have said that trade sanctions placed on North Korea make it difficult for it to acquire the parts it needs to restart Yongbyon, where some of the facilities might be beyond repair because of their age.

Friday's announcement came after U.S. and South Korean officials said last week that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may have suffered a stroke, which raised questions about succession in Asia's only communist dynasty and who controls its nuclear arsenal.

A finger-wagging North Korean nuclear negotiator dismissed as malicious gossip the reports about Kim.

"It is sophism by bad people who wish ill for our country," North Korean Foreign Ministry official Hyon Hak-bong said ahead of talks with South Koreans at the Panmunjom truce village that straddles the border, according to a pool report.

(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

reuters.com

Butterfly

ah, only if GW Bush hadn't destroyed the Clinton plan, all this silliness wouldn't have to be

Camel Toe

What would NK want with a nuke plant that didn't produce bomb-grade plutonium? Do they plan to light the homes and mud streets of millions of people who can't afford a potato?

Texpat

They fucking lied. That's all there is to it.

I hope this gets ugly this time. Starve those fucking morons.

jandajoy

mad_dog

A big famine is on the cards for DRNK blow up a concrete tower and watch the aide and cash flow in. The North Koreans are exellent manipulators nuclear weapons are their only bargining tool and they wont give them up any time soon.

HermantheGerman

Those poor Yankees still have that Vietnam/Korea syndrom. Or else how could you explain why the Yanks have not gone in there yet.

Butterfly

how compassionate you are, you must be one of those compassionate republicans

panama hat

No, no, no - he insists he is non-partisan! Ah, the demon drink! A real sweetheart.