SEOUL -- Thumbing its nose again at the international community, North Korea announced Tuesday that it would restart a nuclear reactor that was closed in 2007 under a six-nation disarmament agreement. Although Pyongyang claimed in the past that the reactor's purpose was to generate electricity, this time the regime declared outright it would also be "bolstering up the nuclear armed force both in quantity and in quality."
| Yongbyon was meant first and foremost to produce new plutonium for bombs. Any electricity it generates is a by-product of that. |
"I have to say this is one of the most dangerous moments since 1953," said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Beijing's Renmin University, referring to the end of the Korean War.
North Korea's sole nuclear reactor, located in the Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear complex 55 miles north of Pyongyang, was mothballed in October 2007, when a disarmament deal was hammered out with the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. At the time, North Korea theatrically blew up the cooling tower in front of television cameras to show its sincerity.
| Cooling towers are easy enough to rebuild, as we'll see in the coming days. |
The plutonium used in two previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, was extracted from spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon plant. It is not clear whether the most recent nuclear test in February used plutonium or uranium. In any case, North Korea's announcement Tuesday, quoting a spokesman for the General Department of Atomic Energy, said a uranium enrichment plant was among the facilities to be restarted.
"North Korea is putting into practice what they said earlier -- that they would strengthen the economy and the nuclear program," said Dr. Park Syung-je, an analyst with the Seoul-based Asia Strategy Institute. "North Korea has led the rest of the world on with lies, saying that nuclear power generation is their top priority. However, with such an announcement, North Korea has proven themselves that nuclear development was their actual priority."
| Some of us knew that all along... |
Although brinkmanship and blusters are hallmarks of Pyongyang's negotiating strategy, this time experts are more alarmed because of the inexperience of 30-year-old leader Kim Jong Un, who took over after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011.
"Kim Jong Il, for all his faults, turned out to be very savvy about just how far he could go. He was very good at keeping North Korea in the position of public enemy No. 2," said Scott Snyder, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. "I'm not sure Fat Boy Kim Jong Un has that sense. He is on the verge of becoming public enemy No. 1, and that could be a fatal mistake."
| Pudgy might want to remember what happened to Saddam... |
| You mean back when George W. Bush was the president? |
Snyder said he did not believe North Korea intends to start a war.
"The risk is really related to miscalculation," he said.
The Chinese, ordinarily the closest allies of the Communist state, have supported the U.N. Security Council measures against North Korea and are clearly frustrated.
| No, they aren't clearly frustrated until they stop shipping fuel oil across the border. |
Last week, Deng Yuwen, an editor at the Party School, Beijing's top institute for training Communist cadres, was suspended from his duties for writing in an editorial in the Financial Times that China should abandon its alliance. But the thought has been widely expressed among Chinese foreign policy experts. |