Nuclear Watchdog Says North Korea Appears to Have Restarted Reactor

VIENNA - North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the U.N. atomic watchdog has said in an annual report.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has had no access to North Korea since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2009. The country then pressed ahead with its nuclear weapons program and soon resumed nuclear testing. Its last nuclear test was in 2017. The IAEA now monitors North Korea from afar, largely through satellite imagery. "There were no indications of reactor operation from early December 2018 to the beginning of July 2021," the IAEA report said of the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, a nuclear complex at the heart of North Korea's nuclear program.