1982 EXPERIMENT S. Korea tells of extracted plutonium

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea said today 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 U.N. 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.
A South Korean delegation left today for the U.N. agency's headquarters in Vienna 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 analyze the chemical characteristics of plutonium," the Ministry of Science and Technology said.