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N. Korea demolishes n-tower

— Photo: Xinhua

Blast for peace: The cooling tower of the nuclear complex being demolished in Yongbyon on Friday.

SINGAPORE: The cooling tower at the Yongbyon complex, suspected to be the nerve centre of North Korea’s plutonium-based nuclear weapons programme, was on Friday brought down in a controlled dynamite blast. With that televised “implosion,” North Korea demolished one of its “icons” of nuclear empowerment to make a political statement of disarmament.

The pre-announced action was carried out as a testament to N. Korea’s commitment to dismantle the entire complex.

It is now being disabled after being shut down under agreements among six parties — the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) or North Korea, the U.S., China as the host, South Korea, Japan, and Russia.

Journalists from the six countries witnessed the blast. Sung Kim, Director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Korean Affairs, who received “nuclear papers” from the DPRK last month, and experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, already overseeing the implementation of the six-party accords, were among the invited guests. Friday’s dramatic cameo came as a sequel to Thursday’s “declaration” by the DPRK on its nuclear activities. The documents were presented to China, prompting U.S. President George W. Bush to announce moves to de-classify the DPRK as a terror-sponsoring state and to stop treating it as enemy-state for trade purposes.

The 25-metre cooling tower was built in 1986 at the Soviet-era Yongbyon complex, which includes a 5-MW research nuclear reactor and a reprocessing facility besides other related units.

The DPRK is seeking “political compensation” for denuclearisation. Asia-Pacific diplomats interpret this to mean security guarantees for the state under the Kim Jong-il regime and economic goodies to its people.

The current exercise can nullify the DPRK’s “capabilities” in such a way that its current stockpile of nuclear weapons, regardless of its size, would be unusable only after a period, diplomats say. That is why, Japan, a neighbour of the DPRK, called for the elimination of its nuclear weapons rather than just the demolition of a cooling tower.

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