The “Nuts and Bolts" of North Korean disablement

Kim Jong-un (First post.com)

Disablement is a word that has crept into the language of the Six-Party talks since it was used by Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary. In the absence of a more acceptable term, disablement became something of a convenience. There is a general agreement that the current phase is a difficult one. As Christopher Hill put it, the Six-Party talks have reached a point where “they have not been before, beyond just shutting down the facilities.” In such situations of advanced and complex diplomatic negotiations, terminologies become quite important. This is a fact which negotiators to the Six-Party talks have come to realise of late. Christopher Hill pointed this out when he talked about the need to come up with common definitions, “so that we are satisfied when they say they are disabling, we know what they're doing and we agree that it's disablement.”

However, gloating over terminologies is not going to get us anywhere on dismantling North Korean facilities. The task before the international community is to effectively dismantle the North Korean facilities in a manner which allows verification and forensic activities. In August 2007 some ideas were also throw up at the meeting of the denuclearisation group at Shengyang. This was followed up by a five-day inspection of the Yongbyon facility by a team of American, Chinese and Russian experts conducted a five-day inspection in September 2007. However, the five-day inspections and other such future visits will enable experts to adapt the ideas thrown up to suit the actual equipment present in North Korean facilities.



There are several ideas floating around which range from disabling control rods, to cutting the drive chains, to disabling/destroying the fuel rod handling machines, to completely entombing the reactor by pouring cement into it. The US Department of Energy (DoE) had released a document in March 2006 which talks about disabling a reactor. This could be a pointer to things to come.

The DoE document recommends a phased approach at disabling a nuclear reactor. The initial step could take the form of disabling control rods in the reactor pile. This step is simple enough to implement and is nevertheless a sure shot way of ensuring that the reactor cannot be restarted. Selective inserting or removing control rods in a reactor is what allows the operator to control the power output of the reactor. Therefore, once all the control rods are inserted in the reactor and the mechanism which allows the operator to move the rods is disabled, the reactor automatically shuts down and also does not allow restarting of the reactor. Though the drive mechanism is reactor-dependant, one can ensure by cutting the drive chains that the control rods cannot be removed from the reactor core.

However, a better option would be to either weld the fuel rods in place to ensure that they do not slide out inadvertently due to an earthquake or remove them from the reactor core. Removing the reactor rods is the best option than just welding them in place or cutting the drive chains of the control mechanism. In addition, the reactor core and the gas cooling system could be to flushed with Boron and/or Iridium. As both these are neutron absorbers, they would make any attempt to restart the reactor very difficult if not impossible.

This step can be followed up by “additional disablement functions” which could include disabling the cooling tower, and “after verification and nuclear forensics are complete” dismantling or permanently entombing the reactor pile. Each step in such a phased approach would be more severe and would naturally make it harder for the facility operators (read North Korea) to restart operations culminating in complete and irreversible disablement of the plant.

It is important to remember that the North Korean regime has a history of never keeping its promises. To save the current initiative from such a fate, care should be taken while dismantling North Korean facilities that the initial steps do not create a situation where verification and forensic activities are not possible. Thus, it is crucial that the experts who are engaged with the task of disablement of the North Korean facilities do not get affected by the overzealousness of their political masters to score a diplomatic victory on the issue.

Share: