Seoul Avoids IAEA Sanctions

[Barkley]

'Lab Experiment Not Serious Enough to Be Referred to Security Council'
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200411/kt2004112615393910230.htm



South Korea acknowledged early September that some of its scientists extracted or enriched small amounts of plutonium and uranium, two key ingredients of nuclear bombs, in 1982 and 2000 without reporting to the government.

Seoul officials have repeatedly stressed the experiments were one-off, laboratory-scale incidents and not part of any arms program, but international suspicions have remained strong.

At Thursday’s meeting, the United States helped create a favorable atmosphere for South Korea by proposing to have the IAEA secretariat conduct ``ordinary inspections,’’ not a special examination, into unresolved issues in the South Korean case and report its findings to the board, according to the Korean officials dispatched to Vienna