Nuclear Proliferation Concerns - The North Korea Case

The genesis of DPRK’s nuclear aspirations can be traced to the aftermath of the Korean War. To develop its own nuclear capability, North Korea initiated the building of a strong national cadre of nuclear technicians and scientists, which were trained mainly in the former Soviet Union. In 1955, North Korea founded the Atomic Energy Research Institute. The Soviets also helped the North Koreans establish a nuclear research center and built a 2 MWth IRT nuclear research reactor at Yongbyon, which began operation in 1969.

Throughout the 1970s, the DPRK continued to develop its nuclear capabilities, pursuing a dual track approach that was consistent with the idea of nuclear self-reliance, the Juche Ethos. While engaging in discussions to obtain Light Water Reactors (LWRs) from the Soviet Union, North Korea initiated parallel studies on graphite moderated gas cooled reactors by using publicly available information based on the British Magnox reactor design. In the 1970s, North Korea also carried outits first plutonium separation experiments at its newly built Isotope Production Laboratory (IPL). The North Koreans designed a reprocessing plant, which the chemical process was modeled after the Eurochemic plant. When negotiations to acquire four LWRs from the Soviet Union failed in mid-1980s, North Korea had already embarked on its indigenous nuclear program by constructing, the 5MWe reactor, a fuel fabrication plant, and a reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, with no known documented external help and with minimal foreign equipment procured. When the joint statement on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was concluded in December 1991, all three facilities had been operational for a number of years, with two additional (50 MWe and 200 MWe) graphite moderated gas cooled reactors were under construction.

The Juche thesis of Kim Il Sung stresses independence from great powers, a strong military posture, and reliance on national resources. Faced with an impoverished economy, political isolation from the world, and rich uranium deposits, nuclear power—both civilian as well as military—fulfills all three purposes.

This paper addresses the acquisition of nuclear technology by North Korea, and how it also became a nuclear proliferator providing Syria with gas-cooled graphite moderated reactor.

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