SEOUL: New images of North Korea’s main nuclear facility show that the isolated regime has apparently produced more plutonium for its weapons programme than previously thought, a US monitor said, as tensions soar over Pyongyang’s ambitions. “The Radiochemical Laboratory operated intermittently and there have apparently been at least two unreported reprocessing campaigns to produce an undetermined amount of plutonium that can further increase North Korea’s nuclear weapons stockpile,” it said. North Korea deactivated the Yongbyon reactor in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament accord, but began renovating it after Pyongyang’s third nuclear test in 2013. North Korea has conducted five underground nuclear tests since 2006, and carried out its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile last week. North Korea, which says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against the threat of invasion, is subject to multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its weapons programmes.

Source: Manila Times July 15, 2017 04:07 UTC