The
International Atomic Energy Agency has not had access to the
secretive state since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2009.
The country then pressed ahead with its nuclear weapons
programme and soon resumed nuclear testing. Its last detonation
of a nuclear weapon was in 2017.
The Vienna-based IAEA now monitors North Korean activities at
sites including the main nuclear complex at Yongbyon from afar,
mainly using satellite imagery.
In a quarterly update to a meeting of his agency's 35-nation
Board of Governors, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said
steam had continued to emerge from a plant serving a
reprocessing lab at Pyongyang since he reported it billowing at
the last meeting.
"The steam plant that serves the Radiochemical Laboratory has
continued to operate since my last Statement to the Board in
March," he said in the text of a speech.
"The duration of this operation is consistent with the time
required for a reprocessing campaign at the Radiochemical
Laboratory. It is not, however, possible to confirm that
reprocessing is taking place," he added.
There was no indication in the past three months of operations
at North Korea's main, 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon that is
widely believed to have produced plutonium for weapons. The IAEA
has previously said it has probably been shut down since
December 2018.
There was also no indication that a Yongbyon facility thought to
be an enrichment plant had been in operation, he added, and
internal construction work at an experimental light-water
reactor there appeared to continue.
Grossi added, however, that there were "ongoing indications of
activity" at a facility just outside Pyongyang called Kangson,
which has attracted attention as a potential enrichment site.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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