The North Koreans plan to unload the fuel from the Yongbyon reactor to extract plutonium within the next three months. This could give them enough plutonium for three to six nuclear weapons.
During a meeting this past week in Pyongyang, Selig Harrison said that North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan told him that the communist nation would unload the rods "beginning this fall, and no later than the end of the year."
Removing the fuel rods is "a significant new development because it underlines that North Korea is enhancing its weapons capability," Harrison, director of the Asia program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, told reporters shortly after arriving from a four-day stay in North Korea.
The Yongbyon reactor has been at the center of U.S. concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The reactor's spent fuel rods can be mined for plutonium, which then can be used to construct nuclear bombs.
Details about the Yongbyon reactor are here. North Korean officials did not confirm or deny whether they were planning a nuclear test when asked by Harrison. But they are obviously stepping up the rhetoric by threatening to acquire still more plutonium.
