A new op-ed on North Korea is out written by yours truly. You can find it on the Center website here or at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' site here .

Some key points are:

- In reaching an agreement with the United States, North Korea took a small positive step, but details of and compliance with the latest agreement will be key in determining whether Pyongyang is serious about denuclearization.

- The simultaneously released statements from the United States and North Korea open the door slightly to six-party talks but reflect clear contrasts between each side's understanding of and assumptions about the latest deal.

- If successfully implemented, the latest agreement could lead to the resumption of six-party talks as early as this summer. But before that can happen, the story will probably involve a series of small steps, perhaps something like these: Robert King, the US Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, flies to a third country for logistical talks on nutritional assistance this month (perhaps even next week); a couple of months later, the United States sends the first of its 20,000-ton-a-month shipments of nutritional aid; upon receipt, the North begins taking steps to freeze its uranium enrichment activity and works with Washington on the timing of IAEA inspectors' return to Yongbyon.

- Once all parties sit back down at the six-way bargaining table, a long and tough road awaits: verifying past reactor-disablement measures and uranium-enrichment activities, dealing with non-nuclear issues of mutual concern, and eventually wading into uncharted waters for even farther-reaching commitments that lead to the final dismantlement phase agreed upon in past six-party accords.

- The dilemma Washington and Seoul now face is how demanding or how flexible they should be in their attempts to bring Pyongyang back to the six-way dialogue table during an election year.

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Nukes on a Blog, North Korea, U.S., bilateral meeting, nuclear moratoria, agreement, uranium enrichment (all tags)

Adding to the suspense building up to his Tuesday talk in Washington, DC, Siegfried Hecker has again disclosed pertininent information about North Korea's nuclear development. On Sunday November 21, Hecker purported that Pyongyang has built a new pilot uranium enrichment program with 2,000 centrifuges currently enriching low levels of uranium along with the construction of a light-water reactor believed to be used for plutonium production.

In my previous blog post, I said there is no need to sound alarm bells upon hearing Dr. Hecker's announcement of a light-water reactor being built at Yongbyon since there were still too many questions left unanswered. However, with the latest bit of news, it is now time to keep a close and cautious eye on Pyongyang's future movements. The fact that Dr. Hecker was amazed by North Korea's level of advancement in its new uranium enrichment program is concerning since international experts had disabled key nuclear facilities and the United Nations has slapped a series of sanctions limiting Pyongyang's ability to receive strategic material for nuclear facilities.

North Korea's latest pursuits again seem to be in line with becoming a "mighty and prosperous nation by 2012" while preparing for a leadership succession.

The immediate quesitons that come to mind are: Where did they get the centrifuges and other materials? They claim to have built them indigenously, then where and how did they build them? North Korea's goal is to complete the facilities by 2010, but in realistic terms how many more years will it take to achieve that goal? They claim to have begun construction in April 2009, then why did we just find out now and how are this far along already? Perhaps with the help of undisclosed military facilities? More analysis to come in futurep posts.

But in the meantime, we can expect the other five countries (at least three, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan) to the Six-Party Talks to react to this situation in some form, and we'll have to wait to see the results of Ambassador Bosworth's current Asia tour. It's time they break the cycle of immediate, short reactions, and instead consistently pursue proactive measures to crack the North Korean nuclear problem.

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North Korea, centrifuges, uranium enrichment, plutonium (all tags)

North Korea is constructing an experimental light-water reactor (LWR) capable of generating 25 to 30 megawatts of electricity, according to Stanford University’s Siegfried Hecker on Saturday. After a North Korea trip, Hecker told reporters in Beijing that Pyongyang informed him in March of its plans to build a LWR power plant that uses its own nuclear fuel. In September, David Albright with the Institute for Science and International Security disclosed satellite images of construction work underway in the Yongbyon complex where the North’s cooling tower was demolished in 2008 as a symbolic gesture to denuclearize. David Albright has not yet disclosed conclusions to his findings, but one Washington nuclear expert initially suspected that North Korea could be building a cooling facility to provide the same function of a cooling tower needed to produce nuclear weapons.

It is too early to sound alarm bells or to be overly concerned. Still, if the North is in fact building a LWR, then some initial thoughts that come to mind are that Pyongyang again has a domestic and international agenda. It appears to be a sign that the North will continue to pursue uranium enrichment even though it will take years to complete the reactor and will have difficulty receiving outside help for its construction due to a series of UN Security Council sanctions resolutions and export bans.  The only way to receive outside help is to smuggle in reactor parts, centrifuges and other technology under the radar of export controls. In realistic terms, the envisioned reactor can only be small in size. Even China is unable to safely build large reactors on its own.

The move also seems to be a part of the “mighty and powerful nation by 2012” equation and to prepare for a leadership succession. The LWR construction could also have an element of eliciting negotiations from the U.S. despite an apparent decision to rely on big brother China for life support. And then of course, it could be a show to grab international attention.

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North Korea, light-water reactor, cooling tower, Yongbyon, uranium enrichment (all tags)