WASHINGTON — North Korea has restarted a mothballed reactor capable of making plutonium for nuclear weapons in the latest challenge to President Bush’s refusal to talk directly with the communist state, senior U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday.
The reactor at Yongbyon, frozen since 1994 under a now-defunct deal with the United States, began operations recently, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The officials called the development provocative but cautioned that it would take the reactor roughly a year to produce enough plutonium for a single nuclear weapon.
It would be far more worrisome, they said, if the reclusive North Korean leadership restarted a separate reprocessing facility that can quickly extract plutonium from thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods now in storage.
The move underlined the North’s ability to continue raising the stakes with the United States on the eve of a possible U.S.-led war with Iraq.
“Certainly it demonstrates a desire to continue their nuclear weapons development program and their intent to apply pressure on the United States,” said a U.S. official.
News that the reactor was back in operation — a fact that one official said was captured by U.S. spy satellites — came little more than a day after the inauguration of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
It also came hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell returned from a trip to Japan, China and South Korea in which he garnered little support for a tough stance toward the North.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said North Korea isolates itself further from the international community with each step it takes to advance its nuclear capability.
“I think this is another example of the regime of North Korea taking escalatory actions in order to gain concessions,” he said. “We seek a peaceful diplomatic solution, but all options remain on the table.”
U.S. allies in East Asia, particularly South Korea, have urged the administration to begin negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
The North has taken a series of steps in recent months to ratchet up tensions, most recently firing a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan the day before Roh’s inauguration.
Restarting the Yongbyon reactor “would be another step in a series of provocative actions North Korea has taken to challenge the international community,” State Department spokesman Louis Fintor said.
It is “a very serious step, but it’s not an unexpected one,” Fintor said.
The United States is consulting with its allies but remains committed to a peaceful solution to the crisis, Fintor said.