North Korea might be restarting nuclear plant, US institute says - Ex-South Korea leader says Kim Jong-il wanted $10B in exchange for talks

Jan. 2, 2015: U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies shows an annotated satellite photo indicating signs of new activity at the 5 MWe Plutonium Production Reactor at North Korea’s Nyongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center. (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea –  North Korea may be attempting to restart its main nuclear bomb fuel reactor after a five-month shutdown, a U.S. research institute said Thursday.

If true, the finding, which is based on recent commercial satellite imagery, will be an added worry for the United States and the North’s neighbors at a time of increasing animosity over recent U.S. sanctions against the North and Pyongyang’s fury about a U.N. push to punish its alleged human rights abuses.

Activity at the 5-megawatt Nyongbyon reactor is closely watched because North Korea is thought to have a handful of crude nuclear bombs, part of its efforts to build an arsenal of nuclear tipped missiles that could one day hit America’s mainland. Nyongbyon, which has produced plutonium used for past nuclear test explosions, restarted in 2013 after being shuttered under a 2007 disarmament agreement. It has been offline since August.

Possible signs in satellite imagery from Dec. 24 through Jan. 11 that the reactor is in the early stages of being restarted include hot water drainage from a pipe at a turbine building that indicates steam from the reactor and growing snow-melt on the roofs of the reactor and turbine buildings.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, however, said that since the recent observation period was only about two weeks, it’s too soon to reach a definitive conclusion about what’s happening and more monitoring is needed. The institute’s website, 38 North, published the findings.

Nyongybon can likely produce about one bomb’s worth of plutonium per year. A uranium enrichment facility there could also give it a second method to produce fissile material for bombs. It is not clear if North Korea has yet mastered the technology needed to make warheads small enough to be mounted on missiles, but each nuclear test presumably moves its scientists closer toward that goal.

North Korea has said it is willing to rejoin international nuclear disarmament talks last held in 2008, but Washington demands that it first take concrete steps to show it remains committed to past nuclear pledges.

The United States also rejected a recent North Korean offer to impose a temporary moratorium on its nuclear tests if Washington scraps its annual military drills with Seoul; Pyongyang claims those drills are invasion preparation. The U.S. called the linking of the military drills, which it says are defensive and routine, with a possible nuclear test “an implicit threat.”

Always rocky ties between Pyongyang and Washington dipped lower because of a recent Hollywood movie depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The U.S. blames the North for crippling hacking attacks on the movie’s producer, Sony, and subsequently imposed new sanctions on the country, inviting an angry response from Pyongyang, which has denied responsibility for the cyberattacks.

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North Korea might be restarting nuclear plant, US institute says - Ex-South Korea leader says Kim Jong-il wanted $10B in exchange for talks

Senate moves toward passing new Iran sanctions, as Graham offers deal on nuclear pact vote

FILE: Oct. 14, 2014: Video cameras at a news conference between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Vienna. (REUTERS)

South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he would set aside efforts to impose more sanctions on Iran if President Obama allows Congress to vote on a final deal with that country over its nuclear program.

“I’m willing to forgo that vote with the understanding that any deal he negotiates will come to the Congress for our approval or disapproval as a check and balance,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Imposing sanctions on Iran to force the country to curtail its nuclear enrichment program, presumably to build a nuclear weapon, has bipartisan support in Congress.

This weekend, Senate staffers confirmed with Fox News some details about upcoming legislation sponsored by Illinois GOP Sen. Mark Kirk and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

They said the legislation supports international negotiations with Iran, provides a diplomatic insurance policy if the talks fail and that no new sanctions will be imposed if a deal is reached.

The committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on possible new penalties against Tehran, amid calls from President Obama for Congress to wait as negotiations near two key deadlines.  

The United States and five other world powers are trying to reach a framework agreement with Iran by March and hope to complete a longer-term deal by June 30 that would limit Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes.

Secretary of State John Kerry has stepped up talks with Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and they may hold further discussions this week when both are expected to attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Graham described congressional efforts as signaling to the Iranians that “we would like a political negotiation, a diplomatic solution. But please understand in Iran that the Congress is intent on reapplying sanctions if you walk away from the negotiating table and if you cheat.”

Graham also said: “I don’t think that’s a disruptive message.”

White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer told NBC that Graham “would like to make all the foreign policy decisions of the United States and be commander in chief. … It’s the president’s authority.”

Pfeiffer added, “It does not make any sense for Congress to scuttle that deal … because that would put America in a bad place, not just in dealing with Iran but with the world.”

The White House will continue to consult with Congress, he said.

Obama said at a news conference Friday that imposing new sanctions probably would doom the nuclear negotiations and heighten prospects of a military showdown. “Just hold your fire,” the president pleaded to Congress, while also issuing the veto threat.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was visiting Washington last week, said he was calling senators to convey the message that new penalties would hurt international unity.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Senate moves toward passing new Iran sanctions, as Graham offers deal on nuclear pact vote

IRAN NUKE BLAST Experts: Explosion proves nuclear program still alive

Satellite photos from before and after Sunday’s blast show an explosion that some experts say proves Iran’s nuclear weapons program is real. (IsraelDefense.com)

The massive blast at an Iranian nuclear plant earlier this week remains shrouded in mystery, but it cleared up one thing, according to those who track the Islamic Republic: The nuclear weapons program Tehran has long denied is real.

The massive blast Sunday night rocked buildings more than 10 miles away, and before-and-after satellite images published by the Israel Defense Force showed startling destruction at a facility Iran has repeatedly barred international inspectors from entering.

“[The] images indicate that a complete section of structures was simply eliminated by an unexplained explosion,” IDF analyst Ronen Solomon said. “The explosion wiped several testing units off the face of the earth while inflicting collateral damage on adjacent buildings.”

Iran, which initially denied an explosion took place, was forced a day later to own up to a blast, via the IRNA official Iranian news agency. The report said two people had been killed as a result of a fire at the site. The true casualty figure may never be known.

“The explosion wiped several testing units off the face of the earth while inflicting collateral damage on adjacent buildings.”

- Ronen Solomon, IDF analyst

Israel has long insisted that Iran’s charm offensive, successful in easing western sanctions, is a ruse to buy time while it pursues nuclear weapons.

“Don’t be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 29. “It’s designed for one purpose and for one purpose only: to lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb.

“Once Iran produces atomic bombs,” Netanyahu added, “all the charms and all the smiles will suddenly disappear. They’ll just vanish. And it’s then that the ayatollahs will show their true face and unleash their aggressive fanaticism on the entire world.”

As in past cases when things explode or scientists are killed in Iran, speculation centers on Israeli intelligence agencies, who, just as predictably, do not comment. Both misplaced blame and proper credit serve the purpose of burnishing their reputation within enemy and terrorist regimes. There are other possibilities, including that it was an accident or that Iranian dissident groups or western intelligence agencies played a role.

“If someone did succeed in infiltrating the Parchin site with explosives and causing the huge explosion which took place there, we are talking about an exceptional achievement,” regional terror analyst Ronen Bergman suggested in Wednesday’s Ynet.com.

Parchin, a site to which international inspectors have repeatedly been denied access since 2007 – a fact that many opponents of the P5+1 talks have long insisted in itself makes a mockery of the so-called negotiation process – is rumored to be the location of the development of the key warhead components required for making a nuclear bomb.

“Western officials suspect that at the heart of this secret development is the weapon group developing the nuclear lens mechanism,” Bergman said. “It’s a complex system of timers and explosives assembled around the core of the bomb, which explode in a way that “pushes” the enriched uranium sphere inwards and starts the chain reaction needed for an atomic explosion. If the smoking gun for the existence of the weapon group is found, it will serve as decisive evidence that Iran has been lying and that there is no point in negotiating with it.”

The assassination of a series of Iranian nuclear scientists inside Iran in recent years as the result of bombs planted on, or next to their vehicles by mysterious motorcycle-riding hitmen, together with the vicious Stuxnet computer virus that hit Iran’s key Natanz nuclear facility in 2010, has allegedly put the brakes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear project.

According to Amnesty International, thousands of dissidents languish in Iranian jails, (including a significant number of journalists). Iran is second only to China in the number of executions it carries out each year, often following only a token trial.

 Regime support is also indicated in the September 2013 massacre of at least 52 Iranians in neighbouring Iraq at the Camp Ashraf refugee camp that had been designated a safe haven for Iranian activists, many of whom had opposed the direction of their nation’s nuclear ambitions. U.S. officials were reportedly furious at Iran’s Revolutionary Guard praising the attack, while Foreign Policy magazine reported that, “U.S. intelligence officials believe that Iranian commandos took part [in the attack].”

Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter @paul_alster and visit his website: www.paulalster.com.

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IRAN NUKE BLAST Experts: Explosion proves nuclear program still alive