Efforts to stop North Korea’s nuclear program a ‘collective failure,’ atomic chief says – By Thomas Maresca (UPI) / July 6, 2022
SEOUL, July 6 (UPI) — The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has called efforts to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program a “collective failure” of global safeguards and cautioned that another detonation could come “any day.”
“Up until 2006, North Korea did not have nuclear weapons,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a lecture Tuesday at Australian National University in Canberra.
“A number of initiatives … failed. And as a consequence of that, in 2006 [there was] the first nuclear weapon test, to be followed by five more.”
Grossi cited the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework, signed in 1994, as an unsuccessful attempt to stop Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons. That agreement froze operations at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for a pair of civilian light water reactors and other benefits including fuel oil and security guarantees.
