N. Korea triggers concern with new nuclear plant

Fresh fears were raised yesterday about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions as an American scientist revealed he had toured a modern, new uranium enrichment plant equipped with at least 1,000 centrifuges.

Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker said North Korean officials showed him the facility last week at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, outside the capital Pyongyang, adding it raised many questions about the secretive country’s plans.

“It is possible that Pyonyang’s latest moves are directed primarily at eventually generating much-needed electricity,” he wrote in a report published online.

“Yet, the military potential of uranium enrichment technology is serious.”

Prof. Hecker, who is reported to have already briefed the White House, said he had been astonished by his findings.

“Instead of seeing a few small cascades of centrifuges, which I believed to exist in North Korea, we saw a modern, clean centrifuge plant of more than a thousand centrifuges all neatly aligned and plumbed below us,” he wrote.

The revelations came as the top US envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, was arriving in Asia yesterday for meetings with regional leaders on kickstarting stalled six-party nuclear talks with the impoverished North.

North Korea, which has carried out two nuclear tests, withdrew from the talks on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula – involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States – in 2009.

The regime also announced last year it was restarting its Yongbyon complex after UN condemnation and sanctions.

The top US military officer said the revelations validated Washington’s concerns over the isolated Stalinist state.

“From my perspective, it’s North Korea continuing on a path which is destabilizing for the region,” Admiral Mike Mullen told CNN.

Admiral Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pyongyang had routinely denied enriching uranium. “When I look at this, it is consistent with belligerent behaviour, and the kind of instability creation in a part of the world that is very dangerous,” he added.

A senior official in US President Barack Obama’s administration described North Korea’s claim of a new plant as “a provocative act of defiance.”

“We have long suspected North Korea of having this kind of capability, and we have regularly raised it with them directly and with our partners in this effort,” the official said.

Prof. Hecker said North Korean scientists told him that construction work on the facility, dubbed the “Uranium Enrichment Workshop,” started in April 2009 and was completed just a few days ago.