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North Koreans Restart Reactor

Aired February 28, 2003 - 14:41   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: While much of the world seems to be focused on Iraq, what is going on in North Korea? U.S. officials say plenty, and what they are seeing is troubling.
CNN's national security correspondent, David Ensor has that for us live now from Washington -- David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Troubling indeed, Marty. U.S. officials say they see evidence of activity at the Yongbyon nuclear reprocessing facility. This is the facility near the reactor that the North Koreans started a couple of days ago, according to U.S. intelligence. This facility is for reprocessing a spent fuel from that reactor, and it could be used to turn the spent fuel into a bomb-grade plutonium.

There is enough there, 8,000 fuel rods, to make five to eight nuclear weapons. So the activity there at the reprocessing plant is of considerable concern.

This comes on top of a couple of weeks -- a bit more than that ago, some evidence that trucks were being loaded, possibly, with fuel rods. So this is additional evidence leading U.S. officials to suspect that the North Koreans may be about to restart reprocessing plutonium at that facility.

This would be in addition to having restarted the reactor in the same area, the reactor we're looking at right here. So quite a lot going on at Yongbyon, Marty, and a good deal of concern here about it.

SAVIDGE: All right. David Ensor, thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 28, 2003 - 14:41   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: While much of the world seems to be focused on Iraq, what is going on in North Korea? U.S. officials say plenty, and what they are seeing is troubling.
CNN's national security correspondent, David Ensor has that for us live now from Washington -- David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Troubling indeed, Marty. U.S. officials say they see evidence of activity at the Yongbyon nuclear reprocessing facility. This is the facility near the reactor that the North Koreans started a couple of days ago, according to U.S. intelligence. This facility is for reprocessing a spent fuel from that reactor, and it could be used to turn the spent fuel into a bomb-grade plutonium.

There is enough there, 8,000 fuel rods, to make five to eight nuclear weapons. So the activity there at the reprocessing plant is of considerable concern.

This comes on top of a couple of weeks -- a bit more than that ago, some evidence that trucks were being loaded, possibly, with fuel rods. So this is additional evidence leading U.S. officials to suspect that the North Koreans may be about to restart reprocessing plutonium at that facility.

This would be in addition to having restarted the reactor in the same area, the reactor we're looking at right here. So quite a lot going on at Yongbyon, Marty, and a good deal of concern here about it.

SAVIDGE: All right. David Ensor, thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com