Update on North Korea’s HEU Equipment Admission
by Richardson ~ September 28th, 2007. Filed under: Diplomacy, Nuclear Proliferation, Six-Party Talks.After years of denying having any highly enriched uranium (HEU) program, some of the details are now beginning to surface. Earlier in September North Korea reportedly admitted to purchasing equipment – aluminum tubes for centrifuges – for an HEU program. Now there are additional details on what was purchased and from where (h/t DPRK Forum):
…North Korea reportedly admitted to importing about 150 tons of hard aluminum pipes, a material for a centrifugal separator, from Russia in the past. The pipes can be used to make some 2,600 centrifugal separators for the enrichment of uranium…
Several things now need to be determined; did they purchase any other aluminum tubes from Russia or anyplace else? Have the tubes been used to manufacture centrifuges? Can all 150 tons (or more) be accounted for? Perhaps the biggest question is whether or not the Bush administration will find and verify the answers to those questions.
