The UN nuclear watchdog confirmed in a confidential report on Thursday that South Korea enriched a tiny amount of uranium in 2000 to a level close to what would be useable in an atomic weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said a senior government scientist, the president of the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) in Taejon, South Korea, knew about the experiments with the uranium and plutonium, also useable in nuclear weapons.
South Korea's government has said it had no knowledge of the plutonium and uranium experiments, though the IAEA said it was still trying to verify this.