North Korea has re-started plutonium reactor, warn US analysts

North Korea appears to have restarted a reactor that produces plutonium, making good on threats to boost its stockpile of nuclear weapons, US analysts said on Wednesday.

Satellite imagery taken on August 31 shows white steam coming out of a building next to the five-megawatt plutonium reactor at Yongbyon, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said.

The image shows that North Korea “appears to have put the reactor into operation,” researchers Nick Hansen and Jeffrey Lewis wrote on the institute’s blog, 38 North.

The reactor “is capable of producing six kilograms of plutonium a year that can be used by Pyongyang to slowly increase the size of its nuclear weapons stockpile,” it said.

North Korea had declared in April that it would restart all facilities at Yongbyon to “bolster the nuclear armed force both in quality and quantity.”

The pledge came at a period of high international tension over North Korea, which defiantly carried out a third nuclear test in February and threatened to attack the United States over its reaction.