North Korea plans to restart nuclear fuel processing next week and has banned international inspectors from its Yongbyon reactor, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced Wednesday. Acting on a North Korean request, inspectors from the Vienna-based agency removed all their surveillance equipment and seals from the reactor Wednesday and will have no further access to the reprocessing site, the IAEA said.
Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the IAEA, told his board that North Korea intends "to introduce nuclear material to the reprocessing plant in one week's time."
North Korea's action comes after several weeks of increasingly defiant threats that it would soon restart its nuclear program. The United States and five other nations are trying to persuade the reclusive and poverty-stricken Stalinist state to abandon its nuclear program in return for food, fuel and a phased end to diplomatic isolation.
Earlier this month, though, North Korea angrily announced that it is no longer interested in being removed from a U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. Press reports in South Korea said last week that North Korea was testing a new engine for an intercontinental missile with sufficient range to hit targets on the West Coast of the United States.
Coming at a time when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is believed to be ailing from a stroke he suffered in mid-August, the IAEA announcement is the strongest signal that North Korea might be turning its back on negotiations. Still, brinkmanship and over-the-top rhetoric have long been part of North Korea's negotiating style.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the United Nations on Wednesday that the North Korean announcement would not end the efforts by the United States and five other nations to negotiate an end to the country's nuclear program, Reuters news service reported. "Everyone knows what the path ahead is, the path ahead is to have agreement on the verification protocol. The North Koreans know that," she said.