North Korea removes reactor monitoring equipment

NORTH KOREA, defying world opinion, said yesterday that it had begun removing UN monitoring equipment from a nuclear reactor at the centre of the communist state’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang’s announcement came after the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, said North Korea had disabled surveillance devices the agency had placed at the Yongbyon research reactor, which the United Nations believes was used to make plutonium capable of use in warheads.

The IAEA said that North Korea had taken further action on Sunday to disrupt the operation of IAEA equipment at the five-megawatt reactor, including the pond for storing some 8,000 spent irradiated fuel rods.