North Korea ousted a United Nations weapons inspector from its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon, and vowed to restart its nuclear production program, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
While North Korea signed a six-party agreement promising that it would denuclearize, and the peninsular nation partially demolished that reactor, the deal is in disarray now.
Pyongyang now says it will rebuild and restart the reactor.
An International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman reported that seals that had been placed on the reactor were removed, so that it can be restarted.
North Korea claims it is going back on its word because the United States hasn’t removed the insular regime from a list of supporters of terrorism.
But the United States hasn’t acted because North Korea — while admitting to its plutonium production program — hasn’t explained how traces of highly enriched uranium (HEU) turned up on documents that North Korea supplied to the West.
North Korea denies it had an HEU processing program.
Also, the communist state has not, to date, turned over to weapons inspectors even one of its nuclear weapons.