Washington and Seoul are in talks on a new civilian atomic accord that would replace the 1974 cooperation pact that is scheduled for a 2014 expiration date. Under the current agreement, the South is prohibited from reprocessing nuclear fuel a processs that can also produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
– Edited by April Murelio –
According to a report by Bloomberg, South Korea wants by 2012 to have a new agreement with the United States that would permit the Asian nation to recycle used nuclear material for its expanding atomic energy industry.
Washington and Seoul are in talks on a new civilian atomic accord that would replace the 1974 cooperation pact that is scheduled for a 2014 expiration date. Under the current agreement, the South is prohibited from reprocessing nuclear fuel a processs that can also produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
South Korea contends that the nation should be allowed to reprocess its fuel as there is a dwindling area where it can house the used material.
"I hope that we can get recycling spent fuel as part of the agreement," Knowledge Economy Minister Choi Kyung-hwan told Bloomberg.
According to a Global Security Newswire report, Seoul contends that the developmental pyroprocessing technique would permit South Korea to reuse spent nuclear fuel rods without producing plutonium, making it more proliferation-resistant than current reprocessing technologies.
“The question of whether pyro is reprocessing is a political one, not a technical one,” according to Sharon Squassoni, head of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“As far as the U.S. government is concerned, I believe this debate is over and pyroprocessing is not considered a different animal than reprocessing,” added Miles Pomper, a senior research associate with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
The Obama administration last year indicated that endorsing reprocessing work was not "necessarily appropriate" for governments like Seoul. Former U.S. President George W. Bush's backing of Indian reprocessing rights, though, makes the question "a tough call," Squassoni said.
“It is understandable why Seoul would be frustrated that India, a non-[Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] state, would be given this deal while South Korea, a loyal U.S. ally and NPT member now in good standing, would face resistance from Washington,” Pomper said.
Solutions might include recycling South Korean nuclear material in France or another country, or establishing an international fuel recycling site in South Korea, U.S. and South Korean analysts said.
Still, at least one nuclear expert believes Seoul should insist on the right to recycle its own atomic fuel.
“The Americans say no to recycling, but don’t offer an alternative,” said Lee Un-chul, a scientist with Seoul National University. “They think we might change our minds and build nuclear weapons, depending on the situation with North Korea. In short, they don’t trust us. This is frustrating. We have to fight.”
In response to North Korea's nuclear work, Seoul should should stop abiding by a 1992 agreement not to enrich or reprocess nuclear fuel, said Cheon Seong-whun, an expert with the government-operated Korea Institute for National Unification.
Such a move would subject South Korea to “tremendous international suspicion and misunderstanding,” warned Lee Byong-chul, a senior fellow with the Institute for Peace and Cooperation.
“We are not the South Korea of old days,” Cheon added, referring to a short-lived effort by Seoul to produce nuclear weapons in the 1970s. “We will never build nuclear weapons as long as the United States keeps its alliance with us. The Americans continue to look at us through the old lens” (Choe Sang-hun, New York Times, July 13).