Seoul Sees Nuclear Steps by North

South Korea said Wednesday that communist North Korea had reprocessed spent nuclear fuel rods, an important step in making weapons.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a report to the National Assembly that it believed North Korea had reprocessed “a small portion” of the 8,000 spent rods at its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.

Reprocessing all the rods could yield enough plutonium for several atomic bombs that could be made within months, adding to the North’s suspected arsenal of one or two bombs, experts say.

Since April, North Korea has claimed that it has all but finished reprocessing the rods. Until now, U.S. and South Korean officials have expressed doubt about the claim, speculating that it might be a bluff to try to negotiate concessions.

South Korea receives much of its intelligence on North Korea from the United States, which uses satellites and surveillance aircraft.

The United States still has questions about North Korea’s nuclear fuel reprocessing activities, despite the South Korean intelligence report, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

“Our assessment of where they are on reprocessing is not 100% clear. There’s enough question to want to leave ourselves some wiggle room on that,” he said.

Ko Young Koo, South Korea’s intelligence service director, also said North Korea conducted nuclear-related tests of high explosives at Yongduk-dong, a site west of the Yongbyon complex. It was unclear whether the tests were recent. South Korea has been aware of similar tests over the last decade.

Also Wednesday, a high-level North Korean delegation used belligerent rhetoric on the first of four days of talks in Seoul between Cabinet-level delegations. The meetings are intended to promote inter-Korean projects, but South Korean officials plan to press North Korea to agree to multilateral talks on nuclear development.

“Our nation faces a stark situation as the black clouds of a nuclear war are coming toward the Korean peninsula minute by minute,” the North Koreans said.

North Korea has used harsh language for decades, and officials in the U.S. and South Korea believe that it’s designed to escalate tension and gain concessions.

But Kim Ryong Song, North Korea’s chief delegate, said at a dinner hosted by his South Korean counterpart, Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun, that the two sides should work hard together despite the tense situation.