New
York Times: In a 1974 treaty with the US, South Korea
agreed not to enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
Those technologies can be used to make nuclear weapons, but
they can also be used to create fuel for nuclear power plants.
South Korea is asking that that agreement be revised, because
it needs to reprocess the spent fuel that's accumulating from
nuclear reactors. The country also wants to meet 60% of its
electricity needs with nuclear power by 2030 and sees
reprocessing and enrichment as a way of securing fuel supplies
for its expanding nuclear industry. Although the US supports a
revised agreement, preventing the spread of uranium enrichment
has been a major emphasis of US policy since 2004, and the US
has required countries interested in civilian nuclear
cooperation to renounce any right to uranium enrichment that
they have as signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons.
