By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter

The five-member inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who will arrive in Seoul on Sunday for additional investigations into South Korea’s nuclear experiments, will focus on the 150 kilograms of uranium metal produced in the early 1980s at three facilities that had not been declared to the nuclear watchdog, according to sources here.

Staying here until Sept. 26, the inspectors are expected to interview scientists involved, take environmental samples and visit the nuclear research facilities in Seoul and Taejon where the two controversial experiments took place in 1982 and 2000, officials said. During their first visit early this month, the IAEA inspectors didn’t meet Korean scientists.

The second visit in two weeks by the United Nations nuclear watchdog has the Seoul government puzzled over what further explanations it can provide, but Rep. Cho Seong-tae of the ruling Uri Party said it is a good chance for the country to clear everything up.

``We haven’t tried to develop nuclear weapons and didn’t try to test fissile materials with the aim of making a bomb,’’ Cho, former Defense Minister, told The Korea Times. ``I think this is the country’s chance to make everything clearer and prevent this kind of event from happening again.’’

Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon plans to reaffirm Seoul’s commitment to a nuclear-free peninsula during his keynote speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Sep. 24, but many foreign critics are still suspicious.

Magnifying suspicions, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday that South Korea produced 150 kilograms of uranium metal in the early 1980s.

``It’s unfortunate that our scientists have caused this suspicion,’’ Cho said. ``If these kind of doubts linger, we will face restrictions in using nuclear energy even for peaceful purposes (including electricity generation).’’

He said South Korea has kept to its nuclear-free policy in a transparent manner.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also said during an interview with Reuters on Tuesday that those experiments by South Korean scientists do not suggest that Seoul has ``an interest in a nuclear weapons development program.’’

``So let the IAEA consider this and make a judgment as to whether that should be the end of it, or to close the case down entirely and refer it to the Security Council as just an informational matter,’’ Powell said.

The first IAEA team conducted inspection in South Korea from Aug. 29 to Sept. 4 to look into the experiments that led to the production of tiny amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium, the two main types of fissile material used in nuclear weapons.

Some critics in Seoul say that the IAEA wants to clean up their reputation by proving their impeccable inspection skills, which were severely criticized when they tried and failed to find nuclear materials in Iraq.

im@koreatimes.co.kr