North Korea has been secretly enriching uranium that could be used to construct nuclear weapons at three or four secret locations; a South Korean cleverness official was quoted as saying on Tuesday. The services are in addition to the one at the North's main nuclear site in Yongbyon that was shown to a U.S. expert previous month and that had more than 1,000 centrifuges, which officials there reportedly said were operational. Uranium enrichment could provide the North a second source of fissile material for weapons on top of its plutonium manufacture programme at the Soviet era nuclear programme at Yongbyon, which was frozen under a currently defunct international disarmament deal.
"The uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon that the North disclosed to U.S. nuclear specialist Siegfried Hecker is not among the three or four South Korea and the U.S. have recognized to be in existence," the nameless official was quoted as saying in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. "We have recognized that the uranium enrichment tests that the North has been conduct for some time are at divide locations," the official said. A South Korean government spokesman decline to remark on the report, which come behind Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov chided North Korea over its nuclear programme and condemned a weaponry attack on a South Korean island that killed four people last month.
Concern over the scope of North Korea's nuclear programme grow after Hecker toured the Yongbyon site in November, where he saying hundreds of centrifuges and was said to have been "stunned" by the sophistication of the programme. Later that month, North Korea launch an artillery barrage against a South Korean island in what it says are doubtful waters, triggering concern about a possible conflict that could draw in the United States and China.
"The uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon that the North disclosed to U.S. nuclear specialist Siegfried Hecker is not among the three or four South Korea and the U.S. have recognized to be in existence," the nameless official was quoted as saying in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. "We have recognized that the uranium enrichment tests that the North has been conduct for some time are at divide locations," the official said. A South Korean government spokesman decline to remark on the report, which come behind Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov chided North Korea over its nuclear programme and condemned a weaponry attack on a South Korean island that killed four people last month.
Concern over the scope of North Korea's nuclear programme grow after Hecker toured the Yongbyon site in November, where he saying hundreds of centrifuges and was said to have been "stunned" by the sophistication of the programme. Later that month, North Korea launch an artillery barrage against a South Korean island in what it says are doubtful waters, triggering concern about a possible conflict that could draw in the United States and China.
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