South Korea and the US have agreed to extend their bilateral atomic energy accord by two years after Seoul failed to secure Washington’s consent to develop independent nuclear fuel production capability, officials said Wednesday.
The two countries have been in talks since October 2010 to amend the so-called 123 agreement which was signed in 1965, last revised in 1974 and due to expire next March.
Despite progress in such issues as a joint research project for a new technology called pyroprocessing and support for Korea’s reactor exports, Washington still resists Seoul having its own capability to enrich uranium to low levels and reprocess spent fuel rods, officials here said.
Korea has proposed pyroprocessing and fast reactors as a solution to handle its spent fuel inventory. The technique is also less prone to proliferation because it leaves separated plutonium mixed with safer fissile materials.
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