|
U.N. Sends Nuclear Inspectors to S. Korea
The United Nations nuclear watchdog will send a group of inspectors to South Korea this week to help it complete a report in November on Seoul's secret past nuclear experiments, a South Korean official said Sunday. Cho Chung-won, director-general at South Korea's Ministry of Science and Technology, said a five-member inspection team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency will make a six-day visit beginning Tuesday. "The third round of investigation will become the final probe before drawing up a report for the IAEA's board of governors on Nov. 25," Cho said, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.Suspicions about South Korea's nuclear activities spiked after the country recently admitted conducting a plutonium-based nuclear experiment in 1982 and a uranium-enrichment experiment in 2000. South Korea has repeatedly said its experiments were part of scientific research, and has expressed hope that the case ends at the board of governors' meeting, and is not referred to the U.N. Security Council. The revelations threatened to disrupt already troubled efforts to persuade communist North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program. North Korea has cited the revelations about South Korean nuclear activities as a major reason it is reluctant to join six-nation talks aimed at ending the communist North's nuclear weapons program. Posted by: Steve White 2004-10-31 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=47417 |