Friday, November 12, 2004
The report called the concealment 'a matter of serious concern.'
LOS ANGELES TIMES
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday that South Korea four years ago produced a small amount of uranium enriched close to the level that could be used in weapons.
A confidential report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, confirmed previous news reports that the South Koreans had failed to report several experiments involving uranium enrichment, plutonium separation and uranium conversion between 1982 and 2000.
The report called the concealment "a matter of serious concern," but said agency inspectors had discovered no evidence that South Korea was pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
A copy of the eight-page report was made available to the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. IAEA officials declined to comment on the findings. The agency's board of governors will take up the matter at a meeting Nov. 25.
What's next
A Western diplomat in Vienna said in a telephone interview Thursday night that the United States might push for South Korea's hidden experiments to be referred to the United Nations Security Council as a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This may serve as a precedent for taking similar action against Iran, which the United States has accused of secretly operating a nuclear weapons program. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is strictly to generate electricity.
The IAEA is expected to issue a new report on Iran's disputed program in the coming days in preparation for the upcoming board meeting. Iran concealed key aspects of its nuclear program for 20 years and the United States is demanding that it be referred to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
No response
Iran failed to give a promised definitive response Thursday to a European deal to freeze Iran's nuclear program. In a Paris meeting last weekend, Britain, France and Germany had offered lucrative trade incentives and a way to avoid sanctions if Iran agreed to fully suspend sensitive nuclear enrichment activities.
If Iran refuses to halt its nuclear enrichment work, the E.U. would back U.S. efforts to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions. Iran had promised a reply by Thursday so it could be included in a report the IAEA may distribute to its board members as early as today.
While Iranian officials said that they had delivered an answer to European ambassadors in Tehran on Thursday night, E.U. diplomats said it was not the clear answer they had hoped for. Some suspected that it was a gambit to keep negotiations open, and perhaps attract a better offer from the European countries. In Paris, the three European nations had offered Iran a light water nuclear reactor in the future, which would be more difficult to use for weapons production than a heavy water reactor.