{"id":383615,"date":"2013-04-02T21:08:39","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T13:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/?p=383615"},"modified":"2013-04-02T21:08:39","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T13:08:39","slug":"north-korea-crisis-could-spiral-out-of-control-un-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/383615\/north-korea-crisis-could-spiral-out-of-control-un-chief","title":{"rendered":"North Korea crisis could spiral out of control\u2014UN chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. AFP FILE PHOTO<\/p><\/div>\n

SEOUL\u2014UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned Tuesday that the Korean peninsula crisis could spiral out of control, after North Korea announced it would restart a nuclear reactor to feed its atomic weapons program.<\/p>\n\n

“Nuclear threats are not a game,” Ban said, responding to a series of aggressive statements by Pyongyang that have prompted the deployment of nuclear-capable US B-52s, B-2 stealth bombers and a US destroyer to South Korea.<\/p>\n\n

The North’s announcement earlier Tuesday that it would reopen Yongbyon reactor — its source of weapons-grade plutonium — triggered international alarm, with Pyongyang’s only major ally China voicing regret and calling for restraint.<\/p>\n\n

The Korean peninsula has been caught in a cycle of escalating tensions since the North’s February nuclear test, which followed a long-range rocket launch in December.<\/p>\n\n

Subsequent UN sanctions and annual South Korea-US military exercises have been used by Pyongyang to justify a wave of increasingly dire threats against Seoul and Washington, including warnings of missile strikes and nuclear war.<\/p>\n\n

The UN secretary general called for calm.<\/p>\n\n

“The current crisis has already gone too far,” the former South Korean foreign minister told a press conference in Andorra.<\/p>\n\n

“Things must begin to calm down,” he said, adding that negotiations were the only viable way forward.<\/p>\n\n

Ban also said he feared an escalation in the crisis.<\/p>\n\n

“I’m convinced that nobody intends to attack the DPRK because of a disagreement about its nuclear system… however I’m afraid that others will respond firmly to any military provocation,” he said.<\/p>\n\n

A Pyongyang government nuclear energy spokesman said the plans for Yongbyon would involve “readjusting and restarting” all facilities at the nuclear complex, including a uranium enrichment plant and the five-megawatt reactor.<\/p>\n\n

The aim was to “bolster the nuclear armed force both in quality and quantity,” the spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency.<\/p>\n\n

The North shut down the Yongbyon reactor in July 2007 under a six-nation aid-for-disarmament accord, and destroyed its cooling tower a year later.<\/p>\n\n

Experts say it would take six months to get the reactor back up and running, after which it would be able to produce one bomb’s worth of weapons-grade plutonium a year.<\/p>\n\n

North Korea revealed it was enriching uranium at Yongbyon in 2010 when it allowed foreign experts to visit the centrifuge facility there, but insisted it was low-level enrichment for energy purposes.<\/p>\n\n

The mention of “readjustment” will fuel concerns that it will be upgraded — if it hasn’t been already — into a facility for openly producing weapons-grade uranium.<\/p>\n\n

Kim Yong-Hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said Tuesday’s nuclear initiative was in a different league from the military bluster of recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n

“This goes beyond mere provocation. It’s a strong, tangible move and perhaps the one that will force the US into the direct dialogue Pyongyang wants,” Kim said.<\/p>\n\n

The prospect of North Korea on a joint plutonium and uranium enrichment path is a hugely worrying one for the international community.<\/p>\n\n

The North has substantial uranium ore deposits which provide a quick route to boosting reserves of fissile material, while plutonium has the advantage of being easier to miniaturize into a deliverable nuclear warhead.<\/p>\n\n

“The international community has spent years working to stall and roll back the North’s nuclear program,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the non-proliferation unit at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.<\/p>\n\n

“If the North now does what it says it’s going to do, it’ll be pushing ahead with both barrels,” Fitzpatrick told AFP.<\/p>\n\n

Many observers believe the North has been producing highly-enriched uranium in secret facilities for years, and that the third nuclear test it conducted in February may have been of a uranium bomb.<\/p>\n\n

Its previous tests in 2006 and 2009 were both of plutonium devices.<\/p>\n\n

The nuclear announcement followed a top-level meeting Sunday of the North’s ruling party, at which young leader Kim Jong-Un stressed the importance of upgrading the “quantity and quality” of the country’s nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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