History Of South Korea's Atom Bomb Program Discussed
Officials in South Korea continued Friday to try to assure the world that the nation had no nuclear arms program, with its top nuclear researcher saying government scientists had enriched a speck of uranium ''smaller than a sesame seed'' merely ''to satisfy their curiosity.''
''Some misunderstood this experiment as a step to build nuclear weapons, but atomic energy experts would probably laugh at such claims,'' Chang In Soon, director of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, the government laboratory where the experiment took place, told the Seoul newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.
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China has repeatedly called for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, fearing that a nuclear North or South Korea could prompt a regional arms race. On Friday, China's Foreign Ministry responded to the South Korean disclosure by calling for more international safeguards.
''This incident also clearly shows that the I.A.E.A.'s guarantee and supervision and the international nonproliferation system need to be further strengthened,'' a ministry statement said.
Many analysts drew parallels with the early 1970's, when South Korea secretly worked on making an atomic bomb. The weapons program was fueled by worries over the United States defense commitment to the South, insecurities that started with the American defeat in Vietnam and increased with President Carter's decision to remove American troops from South Korea.
Kazuhisa Ogawa, a military analyst in Tokyo, said the timing of Seoul's announcement now might have some relation to the Bush administration's decision in the spring to withdraw one-third of the 36,000 American troops from South Korea without demanding reciprocal security concessions from North Korea. ''I think this was an attempt to shake up the U.S. after it had announced the withdrawal of its troops from South Korea,'' he said.
Members of the South Korean team that worked on the bomb program in the 1970's have given interviews to historians and reporters over the past quarter-century. It is not known if there is any connection between that team and the experiment that took place in early 2000.
Recent public opinion polls indicate that many South Koreans do not fear North Korea's nuclear weapons program, believing that Koreans would not use such a terrible weapon on fellow Koreans. Popular culture cherishes the theme of outsiders, usually Americans or Japanese, thwarting Korea's ambition to become a nuclear power.
In ''The Rose of Sharon Has Blossomed,'' a three-volume epic novel, a South Korean nuclear scientist in the United States tries to help his country build an atomic bomb but dies a mysterious death, possibly at the hands of C.I.A. In the end, North and South Korea jointly develop nuclear weapons to repel an invasion from Japan.
A lasting best seller since it was first published here a decade ago, the trilogy has sold more than three million copies.