PSPD in English Peace/Disarmament 2004-04-01   2132

CVID Controversy on the North Korean HEU Program

What is the North Korea HEU Program?

Jungmin KANG, Nuclear Analyst

The second round of six-party talks held in Beijing, China on February 25-28 saw certain agreements on major principles, such as the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, but failed to make any progress on the most urgent issues such as North Korea’s controversial highly enriched uranium (HEU) program, and on details such as freezing and dismantlement of North Korean nuclear programs, both those based on the plutonium program and on the HEU program, and the compensation that would follow.

The US has persistently demanded “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement” (CVID) of the North Korean nuclear programs, both plutonium and HEU based. The United States did not back down from making this demand throughout the second round of six-party talks.

Even though the U.S. welcomed the results of the second six-party talks, North Korea regarded the talks as having no positive result. The result of the talks is that the six nations agreed to hold more senior-level talks before July and to form a lower-level working group to handle details, but without any breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear issues.

The North Korean HEU Program

According to the US government, North Korea acknowledged its secret HEU program when James Kelly, Assistant Secretary of the US Department of State (DOS), visited Pyongyang in October 2002. This led to the second North Korean nuclear crisis. However, it is said that Kelly told the North Korean officials that the US knew that North Korea was violating the Agreed Framework by covertly enriching uranium, but that he did not produce any evidence. North Korea has denied its HEU program. The existence of a North Korean HEU program is still controversial.

The HEU production capability of North Korea depends on how many centrifuges North Korea has. One centrifuge could produce up to about 30g of weapon-grade (WG) HEU annually, with approximately five separate work units (SWU). Therefore, 34 centrifuges are needed to produce approximately 1kg of WG HEU annually. At least 850 centrifuges needs to produce 25 kg of WG HEU annually, which is defined as a significant amount of WG HEU by the IAEA, assuming that no centrifuges would be out of order in operation.

North Korea could not make centrifuges by itself, considering its low level of industrial technology. The typical rotor of centrifuge is spun rapidly at 50,000 70,000 rpm. The DPRK needs to smuggle quite a large number of centrifuges from abroad to produce a significant amount of HEU.

The following statement of John Bolton, Under-secretary of the US DOS, implies the current status of HEU production capability of North Korea.

According to Fred McGoldrick, a nuclear consultant, in 2003, John Bolton said What we have said publicly and in consultation is not that the North Koreans have nuclear weapons produced through the uranium enrichment program but that the North Koreans are seeking a production scope capability to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Priority of Concerns

Besides spent fuel containing up to about 11kg of plutonium that North Korea might extract before 1994, North Korea already has separated, as it claimed, or could separate 25-30 kg of plutonium from the 8,000 spent fuel rods sooner or later. The 5 MWe reactor, in operation since early 2002, could produce another 6kg of plutonium annually in its reloaded 8000 fuel rods. Accumulation of plutonium in the fuel rods increases with time.

Considering the low industrial technology of North Korea and the large number of centrifuges and time-consuming job needed to produce significant amounts of HEU, North Korea is not expected to produce significant amounts of HEU in the near future.

Therefore, we need to pay more attention to stopping the progress of the North Korean plutonium program rather than the HEU program.

Regarding the controversial North Korean HEU program, the US should have technical talks with North Korea to discuss the US beliefs about the program. If the US is chanting the term CVID like a mantra, the North Korean HEU program cannot be resolved.

Detection of an HEU program is very difficult because of the characteristics of the enrichment process of uranium. Unless North Korea makes the unlikely decision to allow all its military bases and underground bunkers to be subjected to inspections, nuclear inspections would be impossible.

You can see original document at www.peacekorea.org

Jungmin KANG

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