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South Korean Nuclear Experiments Occurred at Three Undeclared Sites, ElBaradei Says
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday provided more detail on the recently disclosed nuclear experiments conducted by South Korea, including that the experiments were conducted at three facilities that had not been declared to the IAEA (see GSN, Sept. 13). ElBaradei also told a meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors in Vienna that South Korea did not reveal experiments conducted with plutonium in the early 1980s until agency inspectors provided Seoul with a large amount of information they had accumulated, according to the Washington Post. “It is a matter of serious concern that the conversion and enrichment of uranium and the separation of plutonium were not reported to the agency as required,” ElBaradei said. “I would ask the Republic of Korea to continue to provide active cooperation and maximum transparency in order for the agency to gain full understanding of the extent and scope of these previously undeclared activities and to verify the correctness and completeness of South Korea’s declarations,” he added. Diplomats at the IAEA have said that there was a growing possibility that South Korea could be referred to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear experiments, the Post reported (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Sept. 14). U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said last weekend that the United States would not engage in a “double standard” on countries found to have violated their safeguards agreements under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. He also said, though, that the United States would probably not respond formally until the IAEA releases a report of its findings on the South Korea issue, scheduled to occur by the agency’s next Board of Governors meeting set to be held in November. “Despite the chatter in some quarters, I want to make very clear that the United States will proceed to its decision on how to treat this matter considering the facts that the IAEA brings to us, but with no double standard at all,” Bolton said. South Korean officials have maintained that experiments were conducted on only a small scale and without official approval, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Some people can make mistakes, and in this case some scientists, very ambitious in terms of … their scientific inquisitiveness in certain of the aspects of nuclear materials, went a little bit further without any authorization of the government,” said Cho Chang-beom, South Korean ambassador to the IAEA. Some experts have warned, according to the Times, that the South Korean nuclear experiments could set a precedent for other countries possibly considering acquiring nuclear weapons. “South Korea didn’t have a full-fledged weapons program, but clearly they wanted to hedge their bets,” said Daniel Pinkston, a nuclear expert and visiting professor at Korea University in Seoul. “As the world becomes more unstable, one wonders if other states as well will do the same, fearing they don’t want to be the one country caught without a nuclear deterrent” (Demick/Yee, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 14).
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