Again astonishing the world, South Korean government admitted Thursday several scientists secretly extracted a minimal amount of plutonium during a research experiment in 1982.

The acknowledgment came one week after Seoul's announcement that few South Korean researchers conducted enriched uranium separation experiment four years ago.

The South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology confirmed on Thursday afternoon that "several milligrams" of plutonium were extracted from about 2.5 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel rods at a 2-megawatt research reactor in the state-run (South) Korean AtomicEnergy Research Institute (KAERI) between April and May in 1982.

The chief scientist of the experiment was already dead, other participants said they wanted to study "post-irradiation characteristics" of material and that the purely academic experiment had nothing to do with nuclear weapons.

The ministry also said the amount of extracted plutonium was too little to be related to nuclear weapons. However, there was no record on the exact amount of the plutonium extracted by the scientists, according to the ministry.

However, the reactor located in Nonwon District of Seoul is in the final stage of dismantlement, said the ministry.

Plutonium and enriched uranium are the two main types of fissile material used in nuclear weapons.

After receiving reports from the South Korean government on thetwo experiments, the IAEA dispatched a seven-member inspection team to visit South Korea last week.

It investigated the plutonium case as well as the uranium enrichment experiment. Scientists who participated in the plutonium extraction were also questioned.

Although South Korean senior officials and related authorities underscored both of the two experiments are academic ones and had nothing to do with any nuclear weapon development program, international and local media still paid great attention to the two cases.

Media widely wondered why the two group of scientists could conducted such kind of experiments restricted by the IAEA without informing the Seoul government.

The two cases also aroused various speculation over Seoul's nuclear capability, although the South Korean government stressed either the uranium or the plutonium made in the experiments was much lower than the weapon grade.

Some media speculated that the experiment might have been part of an established uranium enrichment program or even a nuclear arms program.

South Korea has categorically denied those speculations, sayingas a member of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and IAEA Safeguard Agreement, South Korea will firmly stood by its non-proliferation commitment and maintained a high level of transparency in nuclear activity.

South Korea once had a clandestine nuclear weapon program in the 1970s, when the United States slashed the US Forces Korea from60,000 to 40,000.

Then South Korean president Park Chung-hee instructed several scientists to secretly develop nuclear weapons thus to enhance South Korea's deterrent power against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

But South Korea stopped the program both due to US heavy pressure and the death of Park in 1979.

According to the ministry, the plutonium case is also likely tobe reported to the IAEA's Board of Governors meeting scheduled for next week, along with the uranium case.

Local media also worried the exposure of the two experiments may cast a shadow on the six-party talks which aim to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.

The DPRK's envoy to the United Nations, Han Sung Ryol, told theSouth Korean national news agency Yonhap that Pyongyang found the United States "worthless" as a dialogue partner because it was applying "double standards" to South Korea and the DPRK on the nuclear issue.

"We see South Korea's uranium enrichment experiment in the context of an arms race in Northeast Asia," Han was quoted as saying.

However, the South Korean government expressed confidence over the nuclear talks. "I don't think Han Song-ryol's remarks indicatethat North Korea (DPRK) will not attend the fourth round of the six-way talks," Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo said at a weekly press briefing earlier Thursday.

Source: Xinhua