US and South Korea renew talks on nuclear energy

New York Times : In a 1974 treaty with the US, South Korea agreed not to enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel. Those technologies can be used to make nuclear weapons, but they can also be used to create fuel for nuclear power plants. South Korea is asking that that agreement be revised, because it needs to reprocess the spent fuel that’s accumulating from nuclear reactors. The country also wants to meet 60% of its electricity needs with nuclear power by 2030 and sees reprocessing and enrichment as a way of securing fuel supplies for its expanding nuclear industry. Although the US supports a revised agreement, preventing the spread of uranium enrichment has been a major emphasis of US policy since 2004, and the US has required countries interested in civilian nuclear cooperation to renounce any right to uranium enrichment that they have as signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.