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Seminars

IAEA clueless on N. Korean,
Iraqi nuke programs

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, June 21, 2001

LONDON Ñ The International Atomic Energy Agency has acknowledged that it cannot verify whether Iraq or North Korea has achieved progress in their nuclear weapons programs.

In a meeting of the Vienna-based agency's board of governors, the IAEA said it was not able to verify the operations of nuclear programs in Iraq or North Korea. The agency said both countries would have to open its nuclear facilities to international inspection for such a determination to be made.

The IAEA, during a three-day meeting that ended last week, concluded that its nuclear safeguards were implemented in 140 countries. These included measures to protect nuclear material and account for their use.

The board of governors were told that the IAEA has had little success in verifying nuclear safeguards in Iraq since the withdrawal of United Nations inspectors in 1998. Since then, the IAEA has been allowed to return in January 2000 to conduct an inventory of nuclear material at the Tuwaitha facility.

"Since December 1998, the agency has not been in a position to implement its mandate under those resolutions and, therefore, still cannot provide any assurance that Iraq is in compliance with its obligations under those resolutions," the agency said.

Regarding North Korea, the IAEA expressed its inability to verify the report submitted by Pyongyang that there has not been any diversion of nuclear material. The agency said it was unable to verify all of the safeguards measures although it reported successful monitoring of North Korea's graphite moderated reactors and related facilities.

The CIA has determined that North Korea could have at least two nuclear bombs.

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