North Korea resumes plutonium production

North Korea’s Atomic Energy Institute, which has jurisdiction over its main Yongbyon nuclear facilities, told media it had been producing highly enriched uranium necessary for nuclear arms and power “as scheduled.” “We have reprocessed spent nuclear fuel rods removed from a graphite-moderated reactor,” the institute said. The institute did not mention the amount of plutonium or enriched uranium it had produced. 

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in June North Korea appeared to have reopened the Yongbyon plant to produce plutonium from spent fuel of a reactor central to its atomic weapons drive. North Korea vowed in 2013 to restart all nuclear facilities, including the main reactor at its Yongbyon site that had been shut down. 

Meanwhile, North Korea’s deputy ambassador in London has defected with his family. It is being seen one of the most high-profile defections in recent years from the increasingly isolated country. A daily said that a high-profile diplomat in the UK defected with his wife and son to a “third country”. The BBC named the defector as veteran diplomat Thae Yong Ho, a counsellor at the North Korean embassy and deputy to the ambassador. Quoting an unnamed source, the daily said the diplomat embarked on a defection journey “following a scrupulous plan” and was in the process of “landing in a third country as an asylum seeker.”