North Korea Says It Made Plutonium

A North Korean official disclosed publicly for the first time Friday that his country has produced plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.

The official said the material was produced as part of an experimental study on how to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

The disclosure came as Hans Blix, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was on a visit to North Korea to clear the way for international inspections of nuclear sites in mid-June.

North Korea has faced increasing pressure to open its nuclear facilities to international inspections. The United States and Japan have set that condition for improving relations with the Communist government.

Li Sam Ro, the head of Pyongyang’s delegation at normalization talks with Japan, said in Beijing that plutonium had been produced at a North Korean radiation research institute in a project intended to study the use of “nuclear power for peaceful purposes.”

“This is not a plant, not a factory, but a small device for experimental purposes,” Li was quoted as saying by a North Korean Embassy official who translated his comments from Korean into English.

Shigeo Takenaka, spokesman for the Tokyo delegation, said at a separate news conference that North Korean officials told the Japanese the facility was in Yongbyon and had “produced a small quantity of plutonium.”

The North Koreans did not say how much had been produced, Takenaka said.

Also Friday, North and South Korea again failed to reach an agreement on rules for inter-Korean nuclear inspections, officials said.