By Kang Seung-woo
North Korea may be attempting to restart the plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon after a shutdown of almost five months, according to an article Thursday on a U.S. website that specializes in analysis of the secretive regime.
“One possibility is that the North is in the early stages of an effort to restart the reactor,” stated 38 North, citing activities shown in satellite images taken from Dec. 24 to Jan. 11.
The site is run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
“There are clear differences between imagery from late 2014 to early 2015 and from over a year earlier when the five-megawatt reactor was known to have been operating,” it said.
Signs of possible efforts to restart the facility include snow melting off the reactor’s roof and steam coming from a probable pressure relief valve just before it enters the turbine building next to the reactor, according to the website.
However, it added that what precisely is happening at the reactor remains unclear due to the limited period of observation.
“Since the facility has been recently observed over a period of only a few weeks, it remains too soon to reach a definitive conclusion on this and also on whether that effort is moving forward or encountering problems,” the article continues.
The North, which has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006, has threatened to detonate a nuclear device in anger over the U.S. economic sanctions on the regime and a move by the United Nations calling for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to stand trial at the International Criminal Court for state perpetrated abuses of human rights.
The North began operating the reactor in 1985 and agreed to freeze the facility under an agreement reached with the United States in exchange for international aid.
It restarted the reactor in 2002 before it was disabled in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament accord at the six-party talks, but renovations began it after Pyongyang conducted its last nuclear test in 2013.