North Korea has suspended the operation of its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, a South Korean foreign ministry official said on Monday, a move analysts said could be aimed at extracting material for nuclear weapons. The official said the purpose of the stoppage was unclear, but also said Seoul was treating the suspension as a potentially serious development. North Korea said explicitly for the first time in February that it possessed nuclear weapons. It has also previously said it had reprocessed nuclear fuel to get weapons-grade plutonium.
South Korean and Japanese media reported at the weekend that North Korea had stopped the reactor in Yongbyon.
"We have more or less what had been reported in the media, but we'll have to see what North Korea's intention or its future actions will be," Kim Sook, the foreign ministry's director general for North American affairs, told South Korea's KBS radio.
Analysts said a suspension of the plant could allow the North to extract spent fuel rods, which could be turned into weapons-grade plutonium. "I think we'll have to deal with the suspension of the 5-megawatt reactor as a weighty issue," Kim added.
Selig Harrison of the Washington-based Centre for International Policy told South Korean reporters on Saturday that North Koreans had told him the plant would be shut to remove spent fuel rods as part of routine maintenance.
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