The institute said that the restart of Yongbyon did not preclude a new diplomatic effort, saying that North Korea would still need two to three years to discharge irradiated fuel containing plutonium.
“There remains time to negotiate a shutdown of the reactor before North Korea can use any of this new plutonium in nuclear weapons,” David Albright and Robert Avagyan wrote in an analysis for the institute.
“If a shutdown is achieved in the next six months, the reactor would have produced very little plutonium,” they said.
The revelations came as Glyn Davies, the US pointman on North Korea, toured the region in the latest diplomacy by Washington to plot the next move.
“Right now, we simply do not see the positive attitude of North Korea toward fulfilling its obligations, its commitments, to living up to UN Security Council Resolutions, and we need to see that,” Davies said Tuesday in Seoul.
“We remain open, of course, to dialogue with North Korea. As a diplomat, I would like very much to get back to that, but I think it is important that we only do so when the conditions are right,” he said.
His trip came days after a regional tour by Robert King, the US envoy for human rights in North Korea.
King had planned to go to Pyongyang to seek the release of Kenneth Bae, a detained US citizen whose health is apparently deteriorating. But US officials said that North Korea rescinded King’s invitation at the last minute.
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