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No indication NKorea nuclear activities stopped: UN’s IAEA
VIENNA, Aug 21, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The UN’s nuclear watchdog said it had
not seen any indication that nuclear activities in North Korea have stopped
despite its pledges to denuclearise.
“The continuation and further development of the DPRK’s nuclear
programme and related statements by the DPRK are a cause for grave concern,”
said a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), referring to
North Korea’s official name.
The report, published late Monday, by the director general of Yukiya
Amano is to be submitted to an IAEA board meeting in September.
In 2009 Pyongyang expelled IAEA inspectors from its Yongbyon nuclear site
and has since refused to allow IAEA inspections on its territory.
The watchdog has stepped up monitoring through open source information
and satellite imagery, it said.
“As the Agency remains unable to carry out verification activities in the
DPRK, its knowledge of the DPRK’s nuclear programme is limited and, as
further nuclear activities take place in the country, this knowledge is
declining,” it said.
Between late-April and early-May, there were indications of the operation
of the steam plant that serves the radiochemical laboratory at the Yongbyon
site, according to the report.
However, the duration of the steam plant’s operation was not sufficient
to have supported the reprocessing of a complete core from the experimental
nuclear power plant reactor, it added.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump held a
groundbreaking summit in Singapore in June.
At the meeting the pair struck a vague agreement to denuclearise the
Korean peninsula, but there has been little movement since.
Before this, Kim met South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April for
their first summit. They agreed to push for a declaration of an end to the
Korean War this year.
BSS/AFP/RY/1720 hrs