North Korea destroys reactor tower
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - June 27, 2008 An explosion at the base of the cylindrical structure sent the
tower collapsing into debris and dust that billowed into blue skies
at 5:10 p.m. local time as journalists and diplomats looked on,
according to footage filmed at the site by international video news
agency Associated Press Television News.
The demolition of the 60-foot-tall cooling tower at its main
reactor complex is a response to U.S. concessions after the North
delivered a declaration Thursday of its nuclear programs under an
agreement at international arms talks.
A single blast at the base of the cylindrical structure sent the
tower collapsing into a cloud of white and gray smoke as
international journalists and diplomats looked on, according to
video footage filmed by broadcaster APTN at the site. Those at the
event later pored over the shattered pieces of the tower.
"This is a very important step in the disablement process and I
think it puts us in a good position to move into the next phase,"
said Sung Kim, the U.S. State Department's top expert on the Koreas
who attended the demolition. Kim shook hands with North Korean
officials following the tower's tumble to the ground.
The symbolic explosion came just 20 months after Pyongyang
shocked the world by detonating a nuclear bomb in an underground
test to confirm its status as an atomic power. The nuclear blast
spurred an about-face in the U.S. hard-line policy against
Pyongyang, leading to the North's first steps to scale back its
nuclear weapons development since the reactor became operational in
1986.
Last year, the North switched off the reactor at Yongbyon, some
60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang, and it has already
begun disabling the facility under the watch of U.S. experts so
that it cannot easily be restarted.
The destruction of the cooling tower, which carries off waste
heat to the atmosphere, is another step forward but not the most
technically significant, because it is a simple piece of equipment
that would be easy to rebuild.
Still, the demolition offers the most photogenic moment yet in
the disarmament negotiations that have dragged on for more than
five years and suffered repeated deadlocks and delays. Those
attending the event include the top U.S. State Department expert on
the Koreas, Sung Kim, along with broadcasters from the United
States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
North Korea's nuclear declaration, which was delivered six
months later than the country promised and has not yet been
released publicly, is said to only give the overall figure for how
much plutonium was produced at Yongbyon, but no details of bombs
that may have been made.
The declaration was being distributed Friday by China, the chair
of the arms talks, to the other countries involved, U.S. envoy
Christopher Hill said in Kyoto, Japan.
"We'll have to study it very carefully and then we'll have to
work on verification," Hill said.
The chief negotiators from the six-party talks will seek some
answers as they meet in Beijing, possibly as early as Monday, to
discuss specifics on how the North's declaration will be verified.
And possibly in July, the highest-level contact between the U.S.
and the North since 2000 may take place at a meeting of the foreign
ministers of the six nations, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and her North Korean counterpart.
The declaration does not include information on the North's
alleged uranium enrichment program or its possible nuclear
proliferation to other countries, such as Syria.
Experts believe the North has as much as 110 pounds of
weapons-grade plutonium, enough for as many as 10 nuclear bombs.
To verify the claim of how much radioactive material it has
produced, the U.S. says the North will open access to its reactor
for inspectors to pore over the aging equipment and come to their
own conclusions. However, there will be no wide-ranging inspections
to survey secret nuclear facilities, some of which are believed
hidden in underground tunnels.
After the declaration was handed over Thursday, Washington
announced that it would remove Pyongyang from terrorism and
sanctions blacklists.
A few hours after Friday's blast, North Korea's Foreign Ministry
said in a statement that it welcomed the moves to lift the
sanctions and urged the U.S. to completely withdraw its "hostile
policy" toward Pyongyang.
The North's statement came hours after the North blew up the
cooling tower of its main nuclear reactor plant.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Kyoto, Japan, contributed
to this report.