(no subject)
Nov. 26th, 2004 11:43 amNov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations nuclear watchdog said it won't refer South Korea to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after the country cooperated with the agency and stopped undeclared nuclear activity.
The UN was ``seriously concerned but pleased with South Korea's cooperation,'' Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters. ElBaradei yesterday said ``the nature of the activities, enrichment and reprocessing'' was a matter of ``serious concern.''
The IAEA inspected South Korean laboratories and government agencies after the Asian nation acknowledged in September that its scientists produced small amounts of plutonium in 1982 and enriched uranium in 2000.
South Korea's nuclear experiments didn't produce a significant amount of by-products, ElBaradei said. The agency hasn't seen any continuation of these experiments.
``We think it was a good conclusion to the Korean case. It was fair, proportional and measured,'' Oh Joon, a director general from the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in Vienna.
South Korea has actively cooperated with the IAEA in providing information and access to personnel and locations, ElBaradei said, adding that the agency will continue to monitor South Korea.
An IAEA report on the experiments said there wasn't any evidence South Korea was trying to make nuclear weapons when 14 of its scientists secretly produced enriched uranium and plutonium without government approval. Enriched uranium and plutonium can be used to fuel nuclear reactors or for weapons.
``The IAEA report shows that we are at fault for failing to report the experiment, but that it wasn't an organized effort by our government to continuously develop a nuclear program but a one-time experiment on the part of a few scientists,'' South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon said two days ago.
So, South Korea was just doing experiments, they won't be referred to the U.N. Security council for further investigation.
I wonder, what do they call the U.S. "The Burning Bush of Eevil?"
(Note the mispelling in the quote by Voltaire)