DIRECTOR GENERAL'S STATEMENT TO THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS ON THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA, June 1994
ON THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA, June 1994
Vienna, Austria
7 June 1994
As you can see from the report before you (GOV/2687/Add.7), implementation of safeguards in the DPRK last week witnessed a major setback. Data which could have helped the Agency to assess the correctness of the DPRK declaration as to how much nuclear material there is in the DPRK was lost.
The overall objective of comprehensive safeguards in a State is two-fold: firstly, to ensure that all nuclear material subject to safeguards in that State has been declared to the IAEA; secondly, to ensure that such material is not diverted to non-peaceful purposes.
As you recall, inconsistencies between the DPRK's declaration of nuclear material and Agency's findings have led the Agency to conclude that additional, undeclared plutonium must exist in the DPRK - whether in grams or kilograms, we do not know. This gave an urgency to our duty to assess the accuracy of the information given to us by the DPRK about its nuclear material subject to safeguards. Three separate but possibly interrelated elements were the object of the Agency's special interest: firstly, two sites that were apparently related to nuclear waste that could provide evidence of reprocessing activities in the DPRK; secondly, the core of the 5 MW(e) Experimental Nuclear Power Reactor, the history of which could shed light on the extent of any possible reprocessing; and thirdly the DPRK's reprocessing plant - called the Radiochemical Laboratory - and the use that had been made of it.
Over the past year the Agency has made clear to the DPRK the importance of all these elements to verify the correctness and completeness of the DPRK's initial declaration of nuclear material. It is as though the three pieces formed vital parts of a jigsaw puzzle. Without any one of the three pieces the puzzle cannot be pieced together and the full picture cannot be discerned. As the then Deputy Director General of the Department of Safeguards, Mr. Jennekens, explained to the Board during its meeting in February 1993, although important information was expected to become available during the refuelling of the 5 MW(e) Experimental Reactor, "it would not resolve the basic inconsistencies in question. Significant inconsistencies would remain that could only be resolved if the type of information and access requested by the Director General were to be provided".
As regards the waste-related sites, every effort has been made to secure access to them; firstly, through the informal mechanism of visits by officials of the Agency. It was only when every effort to resolve the question of access informally had failed that recourse was made to the formal procedure of special inspection.
As for the second element, the Agency repeatedly made clear to the DPRK the importance that was attached to the verification of the history of the core of the 5 MW(e) reactor during the core discharge. It was well understood that verification fuel in the core was an essential element in the assessment of the completeness and correctness of the DPRK's declaration of its nuclear material subject to safeguards. A paper describing the specific safeguards measures required at the time of core discharge was presented to the DPRK as early as February 1993. In essence the measures would aim at comparing, inter alia, the actual burn up of U 235 and the presence of certain actinides and fission products in discharged fuel rods of known location in the reactor with what should be expected for a declared period and mode of operation.
As for the third element, i.e. the reprocessing plant, the Board will recall that on 21 March I was obliged to report that an Agency team had been prevented from carrying out certain safeguards activities accepted by the DPRK on 15 February. Important activities (gamma-mapping and smear-sampling from the plutonium glove box area) have now been permitted on the basis of what the DPRK considers to be "a special exception", which was made in view of developments in its bilateral relations with the US. Samples were thus taken during the latest inspection and I hope that the results of the sample analysis will show that as the DPRK has declared no reprocessing or other activities have taken place in the reprocessing plant since the inspection in February 1993.
I should now like to focus on the DPRK's responses to Agency requests regarding the apparently waste-related sites and the 5 MW(e) experimental reactor.
As you know, the DPRK rejected access to the two apparently waste-related sites. The Board requested the Director General to bring this to the attention of the Security Council, which mandated the Director General to consult with the DPRK. Despite the Agency's repeated efforts to engage the DPRK in consultations on this subject our efforts have to date been fruitless. The DPRK has declared that the two sites in question are unrelated to its nuclear programme and are military sites. Such reasoning begs the question, however; only after access to the sites is secured and independent verification has taken place can it be determined whether they are indeed non-nuclear - as the DPRK claims - or nuclear-related. The contention that a site is military cannot be enough to make it immune to safeguards. The two sites in question are located within the Nyongbyon nuclear complex and the Agency has repeatedly expressed its readiness to discuss with the DPRK ways and means of obtaining access to the sites in such a way as to ensure that any military characteristics they are deemed to have would not be exposed. In spite of this, access has so far been refused and the possibility of looking for evidence of possible reprocessing by examining any nuclear waste at those sites has been blocked.
I turn now to the DPRK's response to the Agency's requests regarding the core discharge operation at the 5 MW(e) Experimental Nuclear Power Reactor. In April, the DPRK announced that refuelling of the reactor would soon take place. The Agency raised no objections to the core discharge per se, but immediately informed the DPRK about the specific safeguards measures that would be required during the core discharge operation - measures which, as I said, had been described to the DPRK as early as February 1993. These measures - related to the selection, segregation and securing of certain fuel rods for later measurements - are required to assess the history of the core. However, as you know, during a protracted correspondence over the last months the Agency has been told by the DPRK that it will not allow the measures in question. The reasons given were not technical. The measures did not fit the "unique status" of the DPRK which - in its own judgement - was not bound by the safeguards agreement. While such references to a "unique status" are used as justification by the DPRK to accept or reject safeguards measures as it sees fit at any given moment in the light of its bilateral negotiating situation, neither this Board, nor the General Conference or the Security Council have accepted the DPRK's argument about a "unique status". They have upheld the view that the safeguards agreement with the DPRK remains in force and must be implemented.
The reports contained in documents GOV/2687/Add.6 and 7 show that Agency requests to the DPRK not to initiate the discharge of spent fuel without the required safeguards measures in place were ignored. Indeed, the discharge went much faster than anticipated.
An Agency team sent to the DPRK in a last minute effort to seek agreement with the DPRK on the implementation of the requisite safeguards measures was not successful. The team tried in vain to bring about a situation in which the Agency would be enabled to implement the measures it needed to take, i.e. to select a representative sample of fuel rods, to segregate them in baskets and to secure them for later measurements. Even a proposal which took account of the DPRK's alleged "political constraints" concerning early selection of rods - whilst of course maintaining the Agency's ability to meet its technical requirements - was rejected by the DPRK. Throughout this protracted process the only concrete proposal to emerge from the DPRK side came very late and was totally inadequate. It was rejected as such in clear terms by the Agency team visiting the DPRK. That rejection was subsequently confirmed by the Secretariat here in Vienna.
The DPRK proposal would not have allowed the Agency to assess with any degree of confidence the history of the reactor core. After the discharge of the fuel in the manner which has been followed the original location of the fuel rods in the core - vital for later evaluation - can no longer be reconstructed. This is because of the lack of adequate identification of the fuel rods and the impossibility of independently verifying the operators' records - which in addition are inadequate. The DPRK proposed method to compensate for the lack of adequate identification through measurement of fuel rods could also not in any practical way enable the Agency to reconstruct the original location of the fuel rods.
The DPRK's rejection of the safeguards measures requested by the IAEA apparently aimed at preventing these activities until such time as a "package solution" to the DPRK "nuclear issue" had been reached. Regrettably it is now too late for these safeguards measures, while the package solution does not seem to be near.
During the consultations which took place in the DPRK from 25-27 May and thereafter the core discharge continued unabated and at the same fast pace. We can only assume that the intention must have been to destroy the possibility of the Agency obtaining sufficient information about the history of the core through independent measurements and thereby to maintain uncertainty about the amount of nuclear material, specifically plutonium, that may be present in the DPRK.
On a more positive note I should like to mention that despite many set-backs the Agency has now been enabled to perform most of the safeguards activities required at the reprocessing plant, at the fuel fabrication plant and at other declared nuclear facilities in the DPRK. Furthermore, to date, no obstacles have been raised to the safeguards measures required to verify the non-diversion of the fuel discharged from the 5 MW(e) reactor. This fuel is in storage under Agency's surveillance and inspectors are currently present.
However, it must be remembered that the Agency's continuing ability to verify declared nuclear material in the DPRK - like spent fuel - will depend on the extent to which the DPRK is prepared to co-operate with the Agency. What is very clear is that the extent of the co-operation which the Agency has received has been based, not on the provisions of the safeguards agreement, but on political considerations extraneous to the safeguards agreement.
Where are we now? The overall situation is essentially simple. At this point the Agency is enabled to implement adequate safeguards with regard to the DPRK's declared nuclear material. However, it is not in any position to verify whether the nuclear material which the DPRK has declared is in fact all that should have been declared.
What does the future hold? Naturally, for as long as the Agency continues to be denied access to information and locations relevant to the DPRK's nuclear programme, the Agency will not be able to say whether the DPRK's declaration of its nuclear material subject to safeguards is accurate and complete.
Will the Agency ever be able to assess the completeness and correctness of the declaration, even with full co-operation on the part of the DPRK, and especially after the loss of the history of the 5 MW(e) reactor core? I cannot tell at present. All will depend in the future on the extent of the access given by the DPRK to information and locations and on the kind of supporting evidence that will be provided.
We know from our experience in other countries that even with good co-operation and/or very intrusive safeguards measures the verification of the correctness and completeness of an initial inventory is a very difficult task. In the case of the DPRK access to the two waste-related sites as one piece of the jigsaw puzzle is now even more important. Access to additional information and perhaps to even more locations, together with acceptance by the DPRK of more far-reaching means of verification by the Agency, would be essential. What is certain is that without full co-operation by the DPRK it will not be possible to verify with confidence the DPRK's declaration of nuclear material and facilities. The Agency is a mechanism through which nuclear transparency can be demonstrated. Unless this mechanism is fully used, transparency and confidence will not be attained.
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