| Contrast our tough approach with the spineless diplomacy we've conducted the last two decades with the North... |
Seoul is in talks with the U.S. to revise the bilateral nuclear energy pact, which expires in March 2014, to get permission to produce low-enriched uranium for power generation and reprocess spent fuel rods, which are piling up from its many nuclear power stations. But instead it seems the government will have to scramble to avoid even tougher restrictions.
| Let's compromise: let the South enrich uranium for their power plants. Have the IAEA monitor that (as they should do for any country). If any plutonium is extracted from a nuclear rod let that be sold back to the U.S. We can call it 'foreign aid' if it helps. |
When she was running for the presidency in November last year, President Park Geun-hye pledged to have the nuclear accord revised as it is "outdated."
"A major agenda item on Yun's list is the South Korea-U.S. civil nuclear pact," said one high-ranking diplomatic source in Seoul. "Yun will stress the importance of revising the pact when he meets Kerry and other high-ranking members of the Obama administration."
The pact, signed in 1974, details the extent of the nuclear technology Korea can use for civilian purposes and prohibits it from enriching uranium and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants.
| As a country not in the 'Nuclear Club' international treaties allow the ROK to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes so long as they're honest with the IAEA and allow monitoring. Perhaps the original treaty in 1974 made sense in a Cold-War way but it doesn't now. Let the IAEA handle the situation, and get us out of the middle. |
Seoul will try to convince Washington that it only wants to produce low-enriched uranium, which cannot be used to make nuclear weapons, and that it will wait for the results of joint research on a reprocessing method called pyroprocessing that does not produce weapons-grade plutonium before deciding on the issue of reprocessing.
But if Seoul fails to revise the deal, the existing pact simply lapses, and that could mean South Korea would face problems obtaining nuclear fuel. The country relies wholly on uranium imports to fuel its nuclear power plants, and 20 to 30 percent come from the U.S.