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Updated Friday, June 27, 2008 0:00 am TWN, By BURT HERMAN, AP |
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North Korea destroys nuclear reactor tower, symbol of commitment to stop making bombsNorth Korea's nuclear declaration, which was delivered six months later than the country promised and has not yet been released publicly, is said to only give the overall figure for how much plutonium was produced at Yongbyon, but no details of bombs that may have been made. The declaration was being distributed Friday by China, the chair of the arms talks, to the other countries involved, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said in Kyoto, Japan. "We'll have to study it very carefully and then we'll have to work on verification," Hill said. The declaration also does not include information on the North's alleged uranium enrichment program or its possible nuclear proliferation to other countries, such as Syria. Experts believe the North has as much as 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for as many as 10 nuclear bombs. To verify the claim of how much radioactive material it has produced, the U.S. says the North will open access to its reactor for inspectors to pore over the aging equipment and come to their own conclusions. However, there will be no wide-ranging inspections to survey secret nuclear facilities, some of which are believed hidden in underground tunnels. | ||||||||||||||||||||