WASHINGTON -- The apparent shutdown of a nuclear reactor in NorthKorea is raising concerns among Bush administration officials thatPyongyang has finished producing spent fuel rods laced with weapons-grade plutonium.
A U.S. official familiar with the situation said there could be atleast two other possibilities, neither of which was troubling: thatthe reactor had run into mechanical trouble or that North Korea wasbluffing to raise anxieties.
In the past, North Korea has claimed to have taken major steps inits pursuit of a nuclear weapons arsenal, but U.S. analysts say onlysome of those claims are genuine.
Even so, North Korea is believed to have already produced at leastone atom bomb, and the United States, China, Japan, South Korea andRussia are trying through so-called six-nation talks to negotiateelimination of the nuclear weapons program.
North refuses to negotiate
North Korea had agreed to return to the bargaining table lastSeptember after a three-month hiatus but since then has refused toresume the talks.
North Korea's main nuclear complex at Yongbyon houses a 5-megawatt reactor that generates spent fuel rods laced with plutonium,but they must be removed and reprocessed to extract the plutonium foruse in an atomic weapon. They can be removed only if the reactor hasbeen shut down.
AP
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