By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
The United Nation’s chief nuclear inspector rejected suggestions Wednesday that South Korea had a nuclear arms program and said there is no evidence that it tried to cover up past nuclear experiments.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a news conference that there was nothing illegal about the two isolated nuclear-related tests that came to light last month.

``These experiments are completely legal. They are not prohibited per se. The problem is they were not reported (to the IAEA),’’ he told reporters at a hotel in Seoul, just before leaving to Japan.

``I don’t want to jump to conclusions because we are still in the process (of investigating),’’ the IAEA chief said, adding the South Korean government has been fully cooperating with the U.N. agency’s inspections.

He said the IAEA will dispatch one or two more inspection teams to the country this month depending on the number of facilities and equipment they have to check.

The international nuclear watchdog has sent two special inspection teams so far, after Seoul admitted early last month to the two isolated experiments _ one in 1982 and the other in 2000. They produced tiny amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium, respectively, the two key materials for building nuclear bombs.

ElBaradei, however, said the additional inspections are only part of a process to ensure full understanding of the country’s past nuclear activities, including their motivation and the kind of equipment used.

``That is normal to fully bring the issue to a close,’’ he said.

South Korea’s past nuclear activities have also caused difficulties in the six-way talks aimed at ending the 24-month standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons programs. The two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China agreed at their last round of talks in Beijing in June to meet before the end of September for the fourth plenary session in the Chinese capital. However, they have been unable to schedule the meeting as North Korea has refused to return to the negotiating table before the U.S. presidential election next month, taking issue with the South’s nuclear activities.

The IAEA chief stressed there is no comparison between the nuclear activities of the South and North.

``South Korean activities are simply experiments while North Korea has a fully operational reprocessing process,’’ he said. ``I am getting full cooperation and transparency from the South Korean government. The North moved out of the nonproliferation regime over two years ago now.’’

Regarding recent reports that more than 200 kilograms of plutonium were missing in Japan, the IAEA chief said it was the first time he had heard of such an allegation. But he did not completely rule out the possibility by saying he has yet to receive a report on the incident.

ElBaradei came to Seoul on Sunday to attend the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, an annual meeting of the international body for consultations on nonproliferation and disarmament. He flew to Japan yesterday after making a speech at the conference, ending his four-day stay in Seoul.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr