"Associated Press
Updated: Thu. Sep. 9 2004 11:57 AM ET
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said Thursday that it extracted a tiny amount of plutonium in a nuclear experiment in 1982, a revelation that followed an acknowledgment last week that it enriched a small amount of uranium in 2000.
South Korea also said it had "lost" some nuclear material from the 1982 experiment, and acknowledged differences with the UN nuclear agency over the South's report on the matter.
Plutonium and enriched uranium are two key ingredients of nuclear weapons. The controversy over South Korea's uranium-based experiment has threatened to further disrupt troubled efforts to persuade North Korea to dismantle its suspected nuclear weapons programs.
On Thursday, a South Korean delegation left for the UN agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, to explain the experiments and pledge transparency in nuclear operations.
The plutonium-based experiment was conducted in April and May 1982 at a Seoul research reactor belonging to the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, South Korea said in a statement.
"This experiment was conducted by a small group of scientists to analyse the chemical characteristics of plutonium," the Ministry of Science and Technology said.
"We have no written data left on the result of the experiment and the amount of plutonium extracted, but we estimate that a very minute amount in the range of milligrams was extracted," the ministry said.
It said the UN International Atomic Energy Agency found traces of plutonium while examining environmental samples at the site of the reactor, which is being dismantled.
UN officials asked for clarification from South Korea in 1998, but South Korea said it could not find relevant data on research at the TRIGA Mark III reactor. When asked for clarification again in 2003, South Korea said it discovered that a tiny amount of plutonium had been extracted.
"We also confirmed that we informed the IAEA in September 1983 that the nuclear material used during the experiment was lost and should be exempt from safeguard measures," it said.
All the equipment used and samples taken during the experiment were scrapped and kept as nuclear waste, the ministry said.
South Korea said that in March, it presented a report to the IAEA explaining the plutonium experiment, and an IAEA delegation that visited South Korea last week to investigate the 2000 uranium test also continued the plutonium investigation.
South Korea reiterated that it will "thoroughly" honour all its obligations as a member country of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The revelation follows a disclosure last week that the U.S. ally conducted a secret uranium-enrichment experiment four years ago. North Korea responded to that experiment by warning of a "nuclear arms race" in Northeast Asia.
The United States, with the support of South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, has been trying to negotiate an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The talks are due to resume at the end of the month, but no date has been announced."
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/1094729948359_16/?hub=World&subhub=PrintStoryI wonder if there's going to be the same amount of diplomatic pressure on SK as on other countries that were/are thought to, or have admitted to developing nukes.
