FACTBOX-North Korea's nuclear capability
Sun Oct 8, 2006 11:42pm ET
Reuters) - North Korea's central news agency said on Monday that North Korea had conducted its first ever nuclear test, less than a week after it threatened to do so.

Here are some facts about North Korea's nuclear programme:

THE FACILITY

North Korea's nuclear programme is centred at Yongbyon, about 100 km (60 miles) north of Pyongyang. The complex consists of a five-megawatt reactor and a plutonium reprocessing plant, where weapons-grade material would be extracted from spent fuel rods.


EXTRACTING FISSILE MATERIAL

Experts and intelligence reports indicated that North Korea had extracted enough fissile material from Yongbyon to produce one or two nuclear weapons by the early 1990s.

In October 1994, the United States and North Korea struck a deal to freeze the Yongbyon complex in exchange for more proliferation-resistant reactors to be built by an international consortium. That project has been cancelled.

ESCALATION

In October 2003, Pyongyang said it had enhanced its nuclear deterrent by reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods from Yongbyon. U.S. intelligence experts said the North could extract enough fissile material from those rods for another four to six weapons.

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