By Reuben Staines
Staff Reporter


Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrive at Incheon International Airport, Tuesday, to look around local nuclear research facilities during a six-day stay in South Korea.
/ Yonhap


Inspectors from the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog arrived Tuesday in Seoul to take a final look at controversial South Korean uranium and plutonium experiments conducted from the early 1980s before deciding whether to report the activities to the U.N. Security Council.

In their third visit since the government revealed the laboratory tests early September, five officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will look around two nuclear research facilities, possibly gathering additional samples and interviewing scientists.

The team’s six-day inspection will center on the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in Taejon and another research center in Seoul’s Kongnung-dong, where scientists carried out the unauthorized tests.

Arriving at Incheon International Airport, a member of the IAEA team told reporters the inspection was a standard procedure and declined to comment further.

Cho Chung-won, director general of the Science-Technology Ministry’s atomic energy bureau, said it will be the final fact-finding visit by U.N. inspectors before they draw up a report to deliver to the IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna on Nov. 25.

Based on the report, board members will decide whether the isolated experiments _ one conducted in 1982 to extract plutonium and the other in 2000 to enrich uranium _ are serious enough to require U.N. Security Council involvement.

South Korea’s disclosure of experiments two months ago drew strong international concern, particularly over the damaging effect it might have on international efforts to convince North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons programs.

But Seoul officials have repeatedly said the experiments were purely academic exercises and denied claims of a government-backed nuclear weapons program in the South.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said last month the tests themselves did not breach U.N. safeguards but the government should have disclosed them earlier. The U.S. has also played down their significance.

In a related development, ElBaradei on Monday reiterated calls for North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Speaking to reporters after presenting his annual report to the U.N. General Assembly, IAEA director general urged the North to accept offers of aid and security guarantees made in exchange for freezing its weapons programs, describing them as a ``serious challenge to the nuclear nonproliferation regime.’’

``I’m telling the North Koreans again that the international community is ready to look into your security concerns, ready to look into your economic and humanitarian needs, but a prerequisite is for them to commit themselves to full, verifiable dismantlement of their weapons program,’’ he said.

ElBaradei added even if the North is unwilling to give up nuclear development completely, it must at least allow inspectors back to confirm that its programs are ``exclusively peaceful.’’

North Korea kicked out IAEA inspectors in late 2002 and vowed to develop a nuclear deterrent after the United States accused it of running a clandestine uranium-based arms program.

Six-party talks aimed at disarming the standoff have stalled in recent months, with many experts suggesting Pyongyang is buying time until after the U.S. presidential election.

ElBaradei said he is disappointed scheduled talks failed to convene in September but remains hopeful.

``We have continued to emphasize the need for a comprehensive settlement of the Korean crisis through dialogue that addresses all the underlying issues, and it is my hope that the six-party talks will lead to such a settlement,’’ he told reporters.

rjs@koreatimes.co.kr