More reprocessing feared as N. Korea shuts down nuclear plant

SEOUL, Monday (AFP) - South Korea confirmed Monday the shutdown of North Korea's nuclear power plant, a signal that Pyongyang could be moving to double its supply of weapons-grade plutonium.

"We are treating this matter very seriously," said Kim Sook, head of the North American affairs bureau at the South Korean foreign ministry.

"I learned that the halt to operations (at the plant) has been verified through various means," he said in an interview with a local radio station. North Korea claimed in 2003 that it had reprocessed spent fuel rods from its five-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon complex, 90 kilometers (50 miles) north of the capital Pyongyang.

Experts said reprocessing of the 8,000 rods from the plant produced enough plutonium for six-to-eight nuclear bombs.

By reprocessing another batch of 8,000 rods, North Korea could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to allow it to double that number of bombs.

Selig Harrison, a US expert who visited Pyongyang earlier this month, said that senior North Korean leaders told him the country would start reprocessing the 8,000 spent fuel rods in late April.

The specialist from the Center for International Policy in Washington said the North Koreans were no longer interested in a step-by-step elimination of their nuclear programmes in return for rewards.

Instead they would offer to freeze the production of nuclear bombs only if the United States promised not to try to topple the communist regime, Harrison was told.