WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has obtained new intelligence that raises new questions about whether North Korea pursued an alternative route to producing a nuclear weapon, The Washington Post reported in Saturday editions.
Fresh traces of highly enriched uranium were found on18,000 pages of records from North Korea's Yongbyon reactorthat were provided by Pyongyang to the United States lastmonth, the Post said, citing sources familiar with theintelligence findings.
The documents date back to 1987, the Post said. North Koreaprovided them to help the Bush administration verify the amountof plutonium it produced in the reactor.
The newspaper said North Korea next week plans to submitits long-awaited declaration on its nuclear programs, which isexpected to disclose that its nuclear reactor at Yongbyonproduced about 37 kilograms of plutonium. On June 27 or 28,North Korean officials are expected to blow up the coolingtower attached to the facility, the Post said.
Plutonium offers a different route to producing a nuclearweapon than uranium enrichment, the Post said. Pyongyang hasinsisted that it had no uranium-enrichment program.
The new uranium enrichment data is preliminary, the Postsaid. Analysts also do not know how the documents might havebeen handled and how they could have come into contact with apossible enrichment program.
