Almost all of that is U-238, which is non-fissile, but it can be steadily enriched into U-235, which is fissile.
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These terms should address the three main elements of a nuclear weapons program — the production of fissile material, weaponizing the fissile material, and building the means of delivery.
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The Trump administration should eliminate completely all fissile material production in North Korea, including any covert facilities, and then cut off all abilities of the North to generate new fissile material.
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When there are enough fissile atoms close together — a quantity known as critical mass — the particles ejected by fission can strike other fissile atoms, triggering more atoms to split apart and so on.
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All of this makes for a highly fissile political moment.
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He confirmed that North Korea is continuing to produce fissile material.
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Like the Hiroshima bomb, its fissile material was highly enriched uranium.
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The North has enough fissile material for up to 20 nuclear weapons.
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"There's no reason to have fissile materials around fusion plants," said Greenwald.
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Security has also been tightened at dozens of fissile-material storage sites.
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Previous nuclear deals with North Korea merely froze the production of fissile material.
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There are worries too about Islamic State having ambitions to acquire fissile material.
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And Pakistan has blocked international negotiations on a treaty banning fissile material production.
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To make one type of nuclear weapon it takes the fissile material, e.g.
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Isotopes of atoms that can split apart (undergo fission) are described as fissile.
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Only about 13 percent of uranium occurs in the fissile form of U-235.
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Increased availability of fissile material from global reactor growth will add to the problem.
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While negotiations stalled, North Korea is believed to have continued to produce fissile materials.
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Only about 0.7 percent of uranium occurs in the fissile form of U-235.
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It could be radioactive waste, chemicals that have become radioactive during reprocessing, or fissile material.
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In rich countries, working-class families have grown far more fissile than middle-class ones.
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A series of nuclear-security summits helped stop fissile material getting into the wrong hands.
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Both of those techniques are potential paths to clandestinely making fissile material for nuclear weapons.
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Another threshold bars Iran from enriching uranium to a purity beyond 3.67 percent fissile material.
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"Pyongyang continues to produce fissile material and develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile," Mr. Clapper said.
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Mastering and participating in such intricate rites can create mysterious, but also fissile, bonds between celebrants.
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"The North Koreans are going to continue building more nuclear weapons, more fissile material," he said.
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"It's no measure of success because it excludes 98% of fissile material," said Blair of Global Zero.
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One is the temptation to transfer weapons, fissile material or technology to other states or terrorist groups.
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Such a move would be a key step in the production of fissile material for nuclear bombs.
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But, he pointed to his answer to Markey earlier that North Korea is still producing fissile material.
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When they woke the next morning, they found the car's windows smashed and the fissile material missing.
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At the hearing, he also admitted that North Korea is continuing to produce weapons-grade fissile material.
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It wouldn't engage in extensive experimental work to figure out how to detonate a fissile nuclear core.
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In HBO's "Watchmen," beginning Sunday, that fissile storytelling material is history: specifically, America's legacy of white supremacy.
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For plutonium, all isotopes are fissile, but some are easier to use in nuclear weapons than others.
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But it remains in possession of fissile material for a dozen to 60 nuclear bombs, independent experts say.
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But they have fallen far short by continuing to produce fissile material and to expand their nuclear arsenal.
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However, there is no disagreement it has produced fissile material that could be turned into a nuclear weapon.
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Or in the case of India's bombs, the trigger or detonator is kept far from the fissile core.
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It imposes powerful constraints on Iran's ability to quickly amass a stockpile of fissile material for a bomb.
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With this importation in full swing, India currently is engaged in a massive military fissile production build up.
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The current process bombards uranium enriched in a fissile isotope, 235U, with high-velocity neutrons from a reactor.
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In nature, about 99.7 percent of uranium is in the form of the non-fissile isotope U-238.
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Mr. Kim already has enough fissile material for 20 to 25 nuclear weapons, and he may be able to produce sufficient fissile materials — plutonium and highly enriched uranium — for six to seven new weapons a year, according to Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
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North Korea also developed two pathways to fissile materials production, with both plutonium production reactors and uranium enrichment facilities.
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The Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, also first discussed in the 1990s, is in a similar state of limbo.
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The barrier to achieving their objective is the difficulty of manufacturing fissile material, the fuel of a nuclear bomb.
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Russia had viewed the agreement as rendering disarmament irreversible by destroying the fissile materials accumulated during the Cold War.
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New satellite images show the North has made improvements to a facility used to produce weapons-grade fissile material.
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It used implosion to assemble the critical mass by compressing the sphere that was made of the fissile material.
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Ross describes the weaponization of code as "the most significant development in warfare" since the weaponization of fissile material.
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And if it is the case, then it means they're taking the extra step toward producing weapons grade fissile material.
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But he pointed back to his earlier confirmation that it is still producing fissile material as partly answering the question.
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Mr. Kim has not offered to provide a full inventory of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, as Washington has demanded.
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The agreement's premise was that nuclear arms reductions could yield fissile material for electricity generation, particularly in the United States.
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North Korea has not agreed to do so and, according to Mr. Pompeo, is still producing fissile material at plants.
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It is considered an important intermediate stage on the path to obtaining the 90% pure fissile uranium needed for a bomb.
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The fissile material, which enables a nuclear explosion to occur, can be uranium or plutonium, created either by enrichment or reprocessing. ?
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Finally, we don't know how many highly enriched uranium facilities they have to manufacture fissile material or where they all are.
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The details: Pompeo confirmed that North Korea continues to produce fissile material, the key ingredient of its growing nuclear weapon stockpile.
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North Korea has resisted Washington's demand that it quickly dismantle and ship out all of its nuclear weapons and fissile materials.
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"As talks remain stalemated, the North will keep running its nuclear program and produce more fissile materials for more nuclear warheads."
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North Korea can produce enough fissile material for six to seven bombs annually, said Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University nuclear scientist.
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In the redesign, the heavy water reactor will be reconfigured so it cannot yield fissile plutonium usable in a nuclear bomb.
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Nuclear, fissile and radioactive materials — ingredients for a nuclear weapon, crude weapon or dirty bomb — are quite literally all around us.
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North Korea's continued development of fissile materials and missiles is an apparent contravention of its recent agreement with the United States.
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He confirmed that North Korea continues producing "fissile material," but would not say publicly whether it continued to advance its nuclear program.
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At the heart of this approach would be a ban on tests and possibly on the production of bombs and fissile material.
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Breakout time refers to the amount of time it would theoretically take Iran to produce enough fissile material for an atomic bomb.
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When pressed by lawmakers on progress being made on denuclearization, Pompeo admitted that North Korea continues to produce weapons-grade fissile material.
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It is considered an important intermediate stage on the path to obtaining the 90% pure fissile uranium needed to make a bomb.
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First and foremost, Iran most likely will move quickly, without any restraint, to enrich uranium, the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons.
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North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test since September 2017, but American experts think the country continues to produce fissile material.
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By the end of this year, Dr. Hecker estimated, the country is likely to have enough fissile material for about 20 bombs.
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Uranium refined to a fissile purity of 3.67% is deemed suitable for electricity generation and is the maximum allowed by the deal.
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The dismantlement of Yongbyon also would not affect the nuclear warheads, long-range missiles and fissile materials the country has already produced.
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Iran also says it's begun to exceed its limit on enriching uranium, the element can serve as fissile material in a nuclear weapon.
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Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Senate panel North Korea continues to produce fissile material needed to make nuclear warheads.
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Even if complete denuclearization is not possible, negotiators should at least seek a permanent end to testing and the production of fissile material.
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Uranium fuel for reactors is enriched to only about 5 percent, lower than the 90 percent level for fissile material in nuclear bombs.
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North Korea now possesses the fissile material for perhaps 21 nuclear weapons and is steadily improving its ability to deliver them with missiles.
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Instead, Iran's initial steps began shrinking the "breakout time" it needs to produce enough fissile material for a bomb steadily, rather than immediately.
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At the same time, since the IAEA can only monitor the nuclear program, not dismantled nukes or shipped-out fissile material, the U.S. should call a meeting of senior technical experts from Northeast Asia's declared weapons states — the US, China and Russia — to begin discussing how to actually dismantle North Korea's program, disassemble nuclear weapons and remove fissile material form Korea.
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The agreement limited Iran, for 15 years, to enriching uranium to a maximum of a 250% concentration of a fissile isotope called U-210.
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Correction (September 7th, 2018): This article originally stated that civilian power plants were the only way to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons programmes.
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Its breakout time—the time it would take to produce enough fissile material for a single bomb—was a harrowing two to three months.
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The consequences of a single mistake Amid the fissile atmosphere in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, a single mistake could unleash catastrophe.
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The biggest obstacle to building a nuclear weapon is stockpiling enough fissile material — highly enriched uranium or plutonium — for the core of a bomb.
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It later emerged that the North Koreans had been building a separate facility to continue producing fissile material without disclosing it to international authorities.
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"Yes, they continue to produce fissile material," he told the committee, using the term for nuclear material that can be used in a bomb.
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Testifying before the Senate last week, Mr. Pompeo said that North Korea continues to make "fissile material," in essence the fuel for nuclear weapons.
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American analysts estimate North Korea has 30 to 60 nuclear warheads and can produce enough fissile material to make six to seven bombs annually.
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How long that would take exactly is unclear, but stockpiling enough fissile material is widely seen as the biggest hurdle in producing a weapon.
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Washington wants the "final, fully verifiable" dismantlement of all of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, fissile materials and production facilities.
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The biggest obstacle to building a nuclear weapon is obtaining enough fissile material — highly enriched uranium or plutonium — for the core of the bomb.
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|
For decades, Iran had steadily advanced its nuclear program, approaching the point where they could rapidly produce enough fissile material to build a bomb.
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Pompeo said denuclearization would cover nuclear weapons, missiles, engines and systems related to space launch rockets, production of fissile material and associated technology and research.
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And given how carefully North Korea controls its borders and airspace, hunting for fissile material would prove tricky The situation also creates a negotiating imbalance.
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It would have to "ultimately ensure removal or destruction of stockpiles of fissile material, weapons, missiles, launchers and other weapons of mass destruction," he added.
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Editorial North Korea is still defying the international community with its nuclear weapons program, and it now may have enough fissile material for 20 bombs.
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Foreign intelligence services, atomic scientists and a former Israeli employee claim that it is the source of fissile material used to make Israel's nuclear weapons.
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He has done so ever since, and kept on good terms with Western powers by posing as a champion of stability in a fissile region.
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The deal as a whole is designed to keep Iran a year away from producing enough fissile material for a bomb if it chose to.
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The official, Vyacheslav Solovyev, said the institute was working on "sources of thermal or electric energy using radioactive materials, including fissile materials and radioisotope materials".
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If indeed, as seems likely, Iran already has the design for a nuclear weapon, it need only amass enough fissile material to complete the bomb.
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That deal is aimed at keeping Tehran at least a year away from obtaining enough fissile material for an atom bomb if it sought one.
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To make one type takes enriched uranium, which is the fissile material; actual building and testing the Bomb; a trigger mechanism; and a delivery system.
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Such an action would block insights into Iran's civil nuclear activities, increasing the odds that fissile material could be diverted to a covert weapons program.
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" Probably within 12 months, he says, "Iran may well have, with their now I think 3,000 centrifuges, enough fissile material to create a nuclear bomb.
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Along with the detected activity, U.S. officials believe Kim is operating a secret nuclear enrichment facility, where he is producing fissile material for his nuclear arsenal.
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Even reformists, who had dismantled Iran's nuclear programme and handed over enough fissile material to build ten nuclear bombs as part of the deal, feel betrayed.
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In fact, numerous reports indicate that Kim's administration continues to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile program through ongoing production of rockets, warheads and fissile material.
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The photographs it released show three parts related to a warhead: a heat shield, a core sphere containing the fissile material, and a fuel-filled cylinder.
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It has substantially restricted Iran's ability to produce fissile material, the key ingredient for a nuclear bomb, and in that way has made the world safer.
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Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relation Committee in late July, Pompeo acknowledged that North Korean factories "continue to produce fissile material" used in making nuclear weapons.
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The International Panel on Fissile Materials, a consortium of independent nuclear researchers, also estimated that Israel had about 80 warheads as of the end of 2016.
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Enriching uranium up to 20% purity is considered an important intermediate stage on the path to obtaining the 90% pure fissile uranium needed for a bomb.
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Iran said last week it would soon breach some limits on low-grade uranium in the deal, a type of fissile material used in civilian reactors.
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Even if Iran had accumulated sufficient fissile material, it would need to assemble a bomb, probably one small enough to be carried by its ballistic missiles.
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Even if Iran had accumulated sufficient fissile material, it would need to assemble a bomb, probably one small enough to be carried by its ballistic missiles.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged in Senate testimony last week that North Korea is still making fissile material that is used in making nuclear weapons.
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|
The Obama administration cannot punt to the next administration the problem of North Korea's growing stockpiles of fissile material, sophisticated weapons designs and long-range delivery ability.
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If they cannot, Iran would feel free to enrich uranium to ever higher levels, which would shorten its path to producing fissile material for a nuclear bomb.
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|
But Mr Kim shows no sign of being willing to denuclearise in the way America wants him to, and continues to churn out fissile material for bombs.
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The fast neurons can split the atoms of nearly all fissile materials, including the waste left over by traditional thermal power plants, thus dramatically increasing fuel efficiency.
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The US wants the paranoid Hermit Kingdom to open up to international inspectors, dismantle the nuclear program it's spent years building and halt production of fissile material.
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Pompeo also told Markey that the United States does not have nuclear inspectors on the ground in North Korea and that Pyongyang continues to produce fissile material.
|
|
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July that the regime is still making fissile material, but he gave no other details.
|
|
Along with the detected activity, U.S. officials also believe Kim is operating a secret nuclear-enrichment facility, where he is producing fissile material for his nuclear arsenal.
|
|
Last week U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tacitly acknowledged this during Senate testimony when he said Pyongyang's facilities "continue to produce fissile material" for nuclear weapons.
|
|
Unlike in 1994, North Korea now has an unknown number of nuclear weapons stored in unknown locations along with an unknown quantity of weapons-grade fissile material.
|
|
Before formal negotiations were started, it is estimated that Iran was mere weeks away from "breaking out," or having enough fissile material to create a nuclear weapon.
|
|
It could learn how to operate an industrial-scale enrichment program capable of producing multiple nuclear bombs' worth of fissile material before any inspectors could detect it.
|
|
Nor has the North started disposing of its fissile materials or the facilities, such as centrifuges and a nuclear reactor, that have been used to produce them.
|
|
Whether it is close to making a nuclear missile, North Korea is believed to have a significant amount of fissile material — radioactive elements needed to make a bomb.
|
|
The top priority of this meeting must be sustaining Kim's promised temporary suspension of nuclear and missile testing "while dialogue continues," and extending it to fissile material production.
|
|
Whether it's any match for Pyongyang's weaponization of weirdness and fissile materials is a question best answered by the party with the highest stakes in this game, Seoul.
|
|
North Korea has not started disposing of its fissile materials or nuclear facilities, such as a nuclear reactor and centrifuges, that have been used to produce the weapons.
|
|
American officials want to see concrete moves from the North, including freezing its nuclear activities and submitting a full list of its nuclear weapons, facilities and fissile materials.
|
|
In return, North Korea should provide a full inventory of its nuclear weapons, its missiles and its nuclear sites and halt the production of fissile material and missiles.
|
|
Centrifuges, which change the chemical properties of uranium to separate out the most fissile isotope – a material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction called U-235.
|
|
A recent report by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a research organisation, estimates that it has 130-140 nuclear warheads, with enough fissile material for 60-70 more.
|
|
Fusion can't cause an explosive runaway chain reaction without some sort of fissile material, and rather than using uranium like fission does, it's water and lithium in, helium out.
|
|
But some sites are unknown, as are the actual number of nuclear devices and the amount of fissile material, let alone the identity of the most important nuclear scientists.
|
|
The first escalations in May and July upped its uranium stockpile and enrichment level, initiating gradual reductions in the "breakout" time to produce enough fissile material for a bomb.
|
|
Other impediments include a Senate that refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and Pakistan, which has blocked negotiations on a treaty to halt production of fissile material.
|
|
But whether it is aging, Yongbyon remains the only plutonium production site North Korea has, and plutonium has been the major part of North Korea's stockpile of fissile material.
|
|
His father, a former merchant marine who had retrained as a nuclear engineer, came to Richland to work for a plant that supplied fissile material to the Manhattan Project.
|
|
Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relation Committee last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged that North Korean factories "continue to produce fissile material" used in making nuclear weapons.
|
|
Under the deal, Iran is allowed limited research and development on advanced centrifuges, which accelerate the production of fissile material that can be used to make a nuclear bomb.
|
|
This meant that one out of every 10 American light bulbs were powered by fissile material once contained in nuclear warheads aimed at the United States and its allies.
|
|
Last month in Senate testimony, Mr. Pompeo acknowledged that North Korea's plants "continue to produce fissile material," the technical term for the fuel at the core of nuclear warheads.
|
|
But the United States also demanded "one more thing on top of (dismantling) Yongbyon," the country's only publicly known facility that produces fissile material for nuclear weapons, he said.
|
|
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea is continuing to produce fissile material for nuclear bombs in spite of its pledge to denuclearize, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday.
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Under the deal, Iran is allowed limited research and development on advanced centrifuges, which accelerate the production of fissile material that can be used to make a nuclear bomb.
|
|
He did not specify what Iran's next step would be, but Tehran warned last month it could reactivate centrifuge machines and ramp up enrichment of uranium to 20% fissile purity.
|
|
Bolton did not disclose in those interviews the pivotal U.S. expectation contained in the document that North Korea should transfer its nuclear weapons and fissile material to the United States.
|
|
The experiments at issue are known as subcritical tests, because when neutrons from fissile materials interact fiercely enough to initiate a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, they've achieved a critical state.
|
|
Under the pact, Iran can enrich uranium to 3.67% fissile material, well below the 20% it was reaching before the deal and the roughly 90% suitable for a nuclear weapon.
|
|
India has refused, which means it has not accepted legally binding commitments to pursue disarmament negotiations, halt the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and not test nuclear weapons.
|
|
Iran has such a reactor in Arak; the deal requires Iran not to operate the facility and to redesign it such that it will not produce fissile material if operated.
|
|
But Washington wants the North to commit first to a detailed road map for full and verifiable denuclearization, starting with the declaration of all its nuclear weapons and fissile materials.
|
|
As recently as last week, he told senators that North Korean officials "continue to produce fissile material," using the term for nuclear material that can be used in a bomb.
|
|
Uranium is a radioactive element that, if its isotopes are separated and some enriched to a higher level of purity, can constitute weaponized fissile material for a potential nuclear weapon.
|
|
But progress has been slow as the kingdom opposes measures that would prevent it from enriching uranium and reprocessing plutonium, two potential pathways to making fissile material for nuclear weapons.
|
|
Independent experts estimate North Korea now has enough fissile material for 20 to 60 bombs, and it has tested missiles that could potentially deliver a nuclear weapon to the U.S. mainland.
|
|
And Iran inflicted more wounds in July by breaching some of the agreed limits, on the size of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium and on the concentration of fissile material.
|
|
The stakes are high for this multibillion-dollar sector: a cyberattack combined with a physical one could, in theory, lead to the release of radiation or the theft of fissile material.
|
|
They also have a reasonable concern that countries might choose to move from the NPT to the new treaty and thus avoid the NPT's rigorous safeguards against illicit fissile-material production.
|
|
The plutonium being shipped was supplied by the United States, Britain and France for the JAEA's Fast Critical Assembly project in Tokai Mura, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials.
|
|
After six years of prodding by Obama and others before him, the global stockpile of fissile material that could be used in nuclear bombs remains in the thousands of metric tons.
|
|
The Iran deal is flawed, but it is functional and has succeeded as a limited effort to keep Iran away from developing enough fissile material to weaponize, should they want to.
|
|
But one potential sticking point could prove to be Riyadh's ambitions to have the ability of one day enriching uranium - the process for producing fissile material which can have military uses.
|
|
American officials, mindful of North Korea's past failures to honor promises, are insisting that North Korea move quickly toward denuclearization by submitting an inventory of its nuclear weapons and fissile materials.
|
|
American officials have concluded that North Korea is still producing fissile material and, according to news reports, continuing to make long-range missiles at a site north of Pyongyang, the capital.
|
|
According to published assessments, Pyongyang possesses around 60 nuclear warheads, dozens of ballistic missiles and a widely dispersed infrastructure that churns out enough fissile material for about six bombs every year.
|
|
But Washington has been insisting that North Korea first take more significant steps toward denuclearization, such as submitting a full inventory of its nuclear weapons and fissile materials, before being rewarded.
|
|
"Yes, they [North Korea] continue to produce fissile material, yes," he said, adding that he could not elaborate further on the matter publicly due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
|
|
Together its ongoing breaches are eroding the deal's central aim - keeping Iran a year away from being able to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it chose to.
|
|
But we are left with two disquieting problems after the Hanoi summit: First, the leaders could not produce an agreement on a cessation of North Korean weapons and fissile material production.
|
|
The Iran nuclear deal dealt only partially with fissile material, allowing Tehran to retain critical technologies and infrastructure for the future – including the ability to continue spinning centrifuges and advanced centrifuge technology.
|
|
The deal also caps the concentration of the highly fissile U-235 isotope to which Iran can enrich uranium at 3.67 percent, far below the roughly 90 percent of weapons-grade uranium.
|
|
One South Korean official said dismantling Yongbyon would take a comprehensive plan involving a declaration of arms and facilities, samplings of fissile materials and equipment, and ad hoc inspections by outside experts.
|
|
Iran lacked sufficient fissile stockpiles to create a weapon, but Pyongyang already has a secure arsenal, which it views it as an effective bargaining chip to obtain aid and funding, noted Tan.
|
|
"While the nuclear deal may have constrained Iran's ability to produce fissile material, these restrictions begin to sunset in less than a decade, leaving Iran with an industrial enrichment capability," Royce said.
|
|
In a separate closed-door meeting with member states on Wednesday, IAEA inspectors confirmed that Iran was now enriching uranium to 4.5% fissile purity, above the 3.67% limit set by its deal.
|
|
Cheryl Rofer, a scientist who studies nuclear policy, explains that the US only has one facility that can "manufacture the fissile parts of nuclear weapons": Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.
|
|
American officials demand that North Korea quickly dismantle its nuclear weapons and remove the fissile material that it has accumulated in violation of United Nations resolutions, before expecting economic — or other — rewards.
|
|
His overall goal — depriving North Korea of its fissile material, nuclear weapons, missile and nuclear test facilities — is right, though achieving it is sure to require patience and concessions from both sides.
|
|
That would spill refugees and fissile material into China and South Korea, presenting both with a huge cleanup bill and China with a possible united Korea with a nuclear weapon next door.
|
|
Although Kim has maintained a freeze in missile and nuclear tests since 2017, U.S. officials say North Korea has continued to produce fissile material that can be processed for use in bombs.
|
|
Zarif said Iran's next move would be to enrich uranium beyond the maximum 3.67% fissile purity allowed under the deal, a threshold Tehran has previously said it would cross on July 7.
|
|
Under the deal, Iran can enrich uranium to 3.67 percent fissile material, well below the 20 percent it was reaching before the deal, and the roughly 90 percent suitable for a nuclear weapon.
|
|
Enriching uranium to a low level of 3.6% fissile material is the first step in a process that could eventually allow Iran to amass enough highly-enriched uranium to build a nuclear warhead.
|
|
Biden said that after three "made-for-TV summits," North Korea had yet to make a concrete commitment, while it had continued to produce fissile material and was no longer an isolated pariah.
|
|
Several hundred feet down, in two cavernous halls, neat rows of centrifuges spin uranium gas to produce fissile isotopes, which could be used for nuclear energy—or, if concentrated enough, a nuclear bomb.
|
|
Under that deal, in exchange for the lifting of Western economic sanctions, Iran agreed that no fissile material — the makings of bomb fuel — would be put in the centrifuges spinning at the site.
|
|
Specifically, the Singapore-based newspaper wrote, the North has added several intercontinental ballistic missiles and enough fissile materials for six more nuclear bombs, giving Kim's regime a total of more than 85033 bombs.
|
|
The move has alarmed European powers that had previously dismissed Tehran's breaches, such as exceeding the cap on stockpiles of enriched uranium and on the fissile purity of enrichment, as insignificant and reversible.
|
|
But he said there's a difference between having the ability to fire a single nuclear missile and the capability of producing large amounts of fissile material and developing an arsenal of such weapons.
|
|
The Wall Street Journal first reported that intelligence analysts are concluding that the secretive state is accelerating its production of long-range missiles and fissile material, both key components in making nuclear weapons.
|
|
The Wall Street Journal first reported that intelligence analysts have concluded that the secretive state is accelerating its production of long-range missiles and fissile material, both key components in making nuclear weapons.
|
|
Those traces were, however, of uranium, the diplomats said — the same element Iran is enriching and one of only two fissile elements with which one can make the core of a nuclear bomb.
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Those traces were, however, of uranium, the diplomats said - the same element Iran is enriching and one of only two fissile elements with which one can make the core of a nuclear bomb.
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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will enrich uranium above 3.67% fissile purity, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday, if European countries fail to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
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In just the past year, North Korea is estimated to have produced enough fissile material for an additional five to seven nuclear weapons, according to Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.
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There, the challenge is to concentrate the form of the fissile material known as U-2628 from its naturally occurring level of 28503 percent to a required weapons level of about 22019 percent.
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In addition, the kingdom has occasionally pushed back against agreeing to U.S. standards that would block two paths to potentially making fissile material for nuclear weapons clandestinely: enriching uranium and reprocessing spent fuel.
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First, it will be crucial to ensure the permanent removal of all operational nuclear warheads from North Korea, plus the existing fissile material – both plutonium and enriched uranium – and the prevention of future production.
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Asked whether the United States would accept the North's dismantling of intercontinental ballistic missiles or a freeze in production of fissile material as an interim step, Kang said denuclearization should be implemented "in stages".
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Dismantling Yongbyon would slow the production of fissile material, but not reduce the current stockpile of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, nor clear suspicions of other secret production sites, an expert previously told Reuters.
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The threats, made by Tehran's nuclear agency spokesman, would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in the past week to nudge stocks of fissile material just beyond limits in the pact.
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But critics worry that the fuel cycle of fast reactors will likely depend on the reprocessing or recycling of plutonium or uranium, both of which can be used as fissile materials for nuclear weapons.
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It says special nuclear material is only mildly radioactive, but includes fissile isotopes — uranium-233, uranium-235, and plutonium-239 — that, in concentrated form, could be used as the primary ingredients of nuclear explosives.
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"Both secret and Yongbyon facilities can continue operating and expand the fissile material stockpile," Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies nuclear proliferation, told CNN.
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In the past two weeks Iran has breached two limits central to the 2015 nuclear deal, which aimed to extended the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
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Most are reversible and pale in comparison to the fact that the North continues to produce plutonium and enriched uranium, the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons, as well as to build ballistic missiles.
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Tehran has shorted the time it would take to "break out" and produce the fissile material it would need for a bomb, but it&aposs still far from going as fast as it could.
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Lastly, Iran agreed to continuous monitoring from the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to confirm that no fissile material is moved covertly to a secret location to build a bomb.
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Current estimates put the North's fissile material stocks in the range of 20 weapons' worth, and it has twice used a version of its Taepodong long-range missile to put a satellite into orbit.
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The Hanoi talks collapsed after Trump proposed a "big deal" in which sanctions on North Korea would be lifted if it handed over all its nuclear weapons and fissile material to the United States.
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The bottom line: If Iranian officials decided to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, it would take at least one year; without the deal, it would have taken just two or three months.
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The 2015 deal was tailored to extend the time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, if it chose to do so, to a year from around 2-3 months.
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DUBAI, July 1 (Reuters) - Iran will enrich uranium above 3.67% fissile purity, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday, if European countries fail to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
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So Obama negotiated what Litwak calls a "purely transactional" deal — Iran agreed to a 15-year halt on processing weapons-usable fissile material in return for significant sanctions relief, and no other behaviors were covered.
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Uranium refined to 20 percent fissile purity is beyond the 5 percent normally required to fuel civilian nuclear power plants, although short of highly enriched, or 80 to 90 percent, purity needed for a nuclear bomb.
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President Hassan Rouhani announced that after July 7 Iran would enrich uranium beyond a fissile purity of 3.67%, which is the maximum allowed by the deal and a level which is deemed suitable for electricity generation.
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Much fault lies with Russia, which opposes more arms reduction; the Senate, which refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and Pakistan, which has blocked talks on a treaty to halt production of fissile material.
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Responding to Washington's "maximum pressure" policy, Iran has bypassed restrictions of the deal step-by-step - including by breaching both its cap on stockpiled enriched uranium and on the fissile level of enrichment, set at 3.7%.
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Instead of the current 85033 months breakout time--the time needed to enrich enough fissile material for one bomb--Iran will be just days from producing enough nuclear fuel for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs.
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It is thought that North Korea has produced the fissile materials for at least eight nuclear weapons, but is unable at this point to mount them on a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.
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The North Koreans did not agree to any details of denuclearization and it's to be expected that they will continue work on fissile materials while no official orders have come from Pyongyang to halt that work.
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It used a method of enriching uranium that had never been tried on an industrial scale, injecting hexafluoride gas at very high velocity into a tube to separate out the fissile bomb-making isotope, uranium 235.
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On Sunday, Iran announced that it had breached the limit on uranium enrichment — fissile purity of 3.67 percent required for electricity generation — detailed in the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other international powers.
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On Sunday, Iran announced that it had breached the limit on uranium enrichment — fissile purity of 3.67 percent required for electricity generation — detailed in the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other international powers.
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Under its deal with six world powers, Iran can enrich uranium to 3.67 percent fissile material, well below the 20 percent it was reaching before the deal and the roughly 90 percent suitable for a nuclear weapon.
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According to the Obama White House archives, Iran's "breakout time" — the time it would have taken to gather enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon — was only two to three months prior to the nuclear agreement.
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Kim's regime has shuttered a missile engine testing facility; destroyed the entrances to its nuclear test site; and promised to close the Yongbyon nuclear facility, where North Korea is believed to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
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The president pulled out of the JCPOA in May 28503, and began to impose sanctions on Iran, while warning Iran against reneging on any of its commitments under the agreement, such as the processing of fissile material.
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But whatever ultimately is set as the "compensating measures," to use the North Korean term, the North Koreans fully know that they are being asked to dismantle all their nuclear facilities and abandon all their fissile material.
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Quoting an official at the Natanz enrichment plant, the semi-official Tasnim news service said Iran was accelerating the rate of production at which it refines uranium to 3.67% fissile purity, suitable for civilian nuclear power generation.
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He should make plain that three things would force consideration of a United States military response — attacks on American personnel, Iran rushing to acquire the fissile material for a bomb and any direct Iranian attack on Israel.
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But it has already breached many of the restrictions meant to increase the amount of time Tehran would need to accumulate enough fissile material for an atomic bomb from two to three months to about a year.
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Iran has already breached many of the deal's restrictions, including on the fissile purity to which it enriches uranium, its stock of enriched uranium, which models of centrifuge it enriches uranium with and where it enriches uranium.
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He also said last month that there was "no difference" between the United States and North Korean definitions of "complete denuclearization," saying it meant dismantling all North Korean nuclear weapons and fissile materials and their production facilities.
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The plutonium being shipped was supplied by the United States, Britain and France for the government-owned Japan Atomic Energy Agency's Fast Critical Assembly research project in Tokai Mura, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials.
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The 3.67 percent enrichment and 202-kg stockpile limit on uranium, and the 130-tonne cap on heavy water, aim to ensure that Iran does not amass enough material of sufficient fissile purity to produce a nuclear bomb.
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But he did answer significant questions about North Korea, saying, "Yes, they continue to produce fissile material" — though he declined to answer whether the North Korean nuclear program was advancing, saying he didn't want to undercut ongoing negotiations.
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At Yongbyon, North Korea's main nuclear facility which is widely believed to have provided fissile material for its bombs, components appear to have been brought into a light-water reactor being built there, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said.
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Non-proliferation advocates are concerned that any civilian nuclear deal between Riyadh and Washington that could allow the kingdom to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for atom bombs.
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But Iran warned that unless the other signatories to the deal protect Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions within 60 days, Tehran would start refining uranium to a fissile purity above that deemed suitable for fuelling civilian power plants.
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North Korea also produces highly enriched uranium for atomic bombs and would have sufficient fissile material for approximately 20 bombs by the end of last year, and the capacity to produce seven more a year, that report said.
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The plutonium being shipped this weekend was supplied by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France for the Japan Atomic Energy Agency's Fast Critical Assembly project in Tokai Mura, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials.
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But it fell short of clarifying whether Mr. Kim was ready to take major steps toward denuclearizing his country, such as submitting a full inventory of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, that the Trump administration has insisted on.
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The threats, made by the spokesman for Tehran's nuclear agency, would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in the past week to nudge its stocks of fissile material just beyond limits in the nuclear pact.
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Enriching uranium to a low level of 3.6% fissile material is the first step in a process that could eventually be used to produce the more highly enriched uranium that can be used to build a nuclear warhead.
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Although the Yongbyon complex has been used to produce nuclear bomb fuel, North Korea is believed to have other fuel-making facilities elsewhere, as well as fissile materials, nuclear warheads and missiles that it keeps in secret locations.
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Built in the late 1950s with Soviet aid, it houses at least three reactors, fissile materials, fuel re-processing plants and a multitude of research labs, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a Washington-based think tank.
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A core objective of the 2015 nuclear deal — struck between Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — was to keep Iran at least one year from developing enough fissile material to construct a nuclear bomb.
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North Korea suspended its nuclear tests in September 2017, but American experts believe Pyongyang continues to develop fissile material, has 30 to 60 nuclear warheads and might have a ballistic missile capable of hitting the continental United States.
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Glaringly absent in statements from both Washington and Pyongyang on the meeting was any indication that Mr. Kim would ship out his stockpile of fissile materials and dismantle his nuclear arsenal, including nuclear warheads and their delivery systems.
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Verification, the most important prong of this approach, may also be the most difficult to satisfy: It would require North Korea to truthfully reveal the location of all its nuclear sites and fissile material — a very unlikely prospect.
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And the president could link withdrawal from the nuclear deal to a new deterrence doctrine: Any evidence of Iranian enrichment of fissile material past a certain point would trigger massive American military action, designed to end the regime.
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The deal was aimed at extending the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a bomb, if it sought one - something sometimes referred to as "breakout time" to about a year from 2-3 months.
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Delving into nuclear yields, missile throw-weights, spent fuel quantities, enrichment capabilities, fissile material stockpiles, level of detail for program disclosures and the like can now come after the leaders have gotten the overall concept and framework in place.
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Uranium refined to 20 percent fissile purity is well beyond the 5 percent normally required to fuel civilian nuclear power plants, although still well short of highly enriched, or 80 to 90 percent, purity needed for a nuclear bomb.
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The nuclear deal aimed to extend the amount of time it would theoretically take Iran to produce enough fissile material for an atomic bomb — so-called breakout time — from several months to a minimum of one year until 2025.
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Under the 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers, Iran agreed to transform its nuclear facilities at Arak and Fordow in ways that would make it much more difficult to use them to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
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Under the nuclear deal, Iran is allowed to stockpile up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of low-enriched uranium, which has somewhere between a 3% and 4% concentration of the fissile isotope needed to set off a nuclear reaction.
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Other benefits: Thorium is more abundant in nature than uranium and it would serve as a poor input for fissile materials, making one of the risks of developing nuclear power — that it could be used to create weapons — moot.
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It seeks to stretch from about two months to at least a year the "breakout" time that Iran would need, should it choose to abandon all caution and attempt to produce enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon.
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The deal's objective was to extend the time Iran would need to accumulate enough fissile material for an atom bomb, if it sought one - something sometimes referred to as "breakout time" to about a year from 2-3 months.
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The maximum fissile purity to which it has enriched so far remains 4.5%, above the deal's 3.67% cap but still well below the 20% Iran has achieved before and the 90% required for the core of a nuclear bomb.
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The nuclear deal aimed to extend the amount of time it would theoretically take Iran to produce enough fissile material for an atomic bomb - so-called breakout time - from several months to a minimum of one year until 2025.
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As he prepares to leave office, there is little expectation that Mr. Obama will be able to end the threat from North Korea, which is now estimated to have enough fissile material for as many as 21 nuclear weapons.
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Yongbyon is the only publicly known complex where North Korea produces fissile material for nuclear weapons, but experts have long believed North Korea operates a series of covert sites that contribute to its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program.
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The deal's objective was to extend the time Iran would need to accumulate enough fissile material for an atom bomb, if it sought one – something sometimes referred to as "breakout time" - to about a year from 2-3 months.
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With nuclear diplomacy at the heart of the crisis, Iran announced this week it had amassed more fissile material than allowed under its deal, and said it would purify uranium to a higher degree than permitted from July 7.
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We need this now because we&aposve seen all the reports, not only the ones about the submarines, but also the increased production of fissile material, working on their plutonium reactor, which has no peaceful purpose, all the rest of it.
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"We must reach agreement on expert access and monitoring mechanisms of key sites to international standards, and ultimately ensure the removal or destruction of stockpiles of fissile material, weapons, missiles, launchers and other weapons of mass destruction," the speech says.
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Nuclear experts have said that Iran's move, if carried out, would probably require Tehran to enrich uranium to a fissile purity above the maximum level set in the nuclear deal to allay fears of the country building an atomic bomb.
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The release touts Harrington supposed credentials in "the security of fissile materials and the protection of critical national infrastructure," but the latest involvement we were able to find in this area are a few papers he co-authored in 1997.
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The official noted that under the offer, Iran would keep enriching uranium, a process that can produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, and would do nothing to rein in its support for regional proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
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Nuclear experts said that President Hassan Rouhani's move, if carried out, would probably require Iran to enrich uranium to a fissile purity above the maximum level set in the nuclear deal to allay fears of Tehran building an atomic bomb.
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In terms of a more rapidly nuclear-armed Iran, the JCPOA gave Iran an easing of sanctions and the release of $150 billion in frozen assets in exchange for limitations on its capacity to enrich uranium and other fissile material.
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Opinions differ, and certainly dismantling the aging facilities at Yongbyon would not have addressed the totality of North Korean nuclear facilities, nor would it have included the surrender of any actual fissile material or limited the fearsome new generation of missiles.
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said publicly that North Korea continues to produce fissile material -- material used to make nuclear weapons -- and there are even reports that North Korea is upgrading its nuclear infrastructure and making more sophisticated weapons.
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The recovery mission was part of the National Nuclear Security Agency's Off-Site Source Recovery Program, which hunts down small samples of fissile material that have been distributed to various public and private research facilities prior to the late 90s.
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It is harder to keep track of fissile material when it is distributed at hundreds of different sites, so the recovery program aims to reduce the risk of the material falling into the wrong hands by consolidating it at national laboratories.
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"We are not surprised that North Korea has not halted its fissile materials production in absence of formal negotiations," said Siegfried Hecker, an expert on North Korea's nuclear program who is a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
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You could sense the animators racing to keep up with his vocal switchbacks: his Jack Nicholson, his Groucho Marx, his Peter Lorre, and—believe it or not—his William F. Buckley, Jr. Little of that fissile exhilaration survives in Ritchie's film.
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Trump's director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, told Congress in February that the Iran deal had extended the amount of time Iran would need to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon and enhanced the transparency of Iran's nuclear activities.
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Uranium refined to 20 percent fissile purity is well beyond the 5 percent normally required to fuel civilian nuclear power plants, although still well short of the highly enriched, or 80 to 90 percent, purity needed for a nuclear bomb.
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LONGER TERM: If negotiations are successful, even more so than some think possible, North Korea would eventually begin destroying or removing to another country its fissile material and dismantling weapons and production facilities, providing a comprehensive list of its facilities.
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In little more than a decade, Iran will be an industrial-strength nuclear state never more than a few weeks away from having enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon — and that's if Iran abides by the current nuclear agreement!
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The deal as a whole was designed to increase the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it wanted one – the main obstacle to producing a nuclear weapon – from around two or three months.
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For too long, Iran's nuclear program was treated as if a creative cocktail of sanctions relief and limited fissile material controls could dampen the material and ideational forces that have sustained it — and which also drive its foreign and domestic aggression.
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As a result of Iran's initial compliance with the agreement, the deal has extended the time it would take Tehran to "break out" and assemble enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon from two to three months to a year or more.
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Rouhani said at the time that Iran would no longer abide by some of its commitments regarding the production of fissile material, due to President Donald Trump reneging on the agreement in May 2018 and increased diplomatic and military pressure on Tehran.
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Iran's President Hassan Rouhani warned as early as May that Iran would no longer abide by some of its commitments limiting the production of fissile material, due to Washington's own withdrawal from the agreement and increased diplomatic and military pressure on Tehran.
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Since they share a penchant for big, splashy actions, there has been a lot of speculation Kim may agree to hand over some of his nuclear weapons, fissile material or actual missiles, and that Trump is looking at some kind of peace declaration.
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First came denial: that North Korea cheats so there is no point to negotiating, which denies that past deals did stop its fissile material production and missile tests for nearly a decade and that Pyongyang was not the only one to renege.
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Evidence collected since the summit points to preparations to deceive the U.S. about the number of nuclear warheads in North Korea&aposs arsenal as well as the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs, according to the report.
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Discussions had been held up on Saudi Arabia's desire to relax nonproliferation standards and potentially allow the country to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, technologies that non-proliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
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Uranium enriched to the low level of 3.67% fissile material, allowed under the deal, is the initial step in a complex process that could, over time, enable Iran to accumulate enough highly-enriched uranium to build a nuclear warhead, according to experts.
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The nuclear-weapon states boycotted the discussions leading up to the treaty's adoption in July, arguing that it is a distraction from other disarmament and non-proliferation initiatives, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.
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It aims to increase the time Iran would need to make enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon from several months to a year, primarily by capping Tehran's ability to enrich uranium, which can create material ranging from reactor fuel to warhead material.
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The reactor could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, but North Korea is believed to already have enough fissile material for multiple nuclear bombs, according to Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
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United Nations nuclear inspectors last week confirmed Iran is now enriching uranium to 4.5% fissile purity, above the 3.67% limit set by its deal, the second breach in as many weeks after Tehran exceeded limits on its stock of low-enriched uranium.
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Iran said in May that after 60 days it would resume its enrichment of uranium beyond the low fissile purity - suitable for civilian nuclear power generation - allowed under the deal, unless other powers stuck to their commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.
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Two days before I went to Dover, a fourteen-page update from the Brexit negotiations included progress on the status of staff employed on British military bases in Cyprus, the ownership of fissile nuclear materials, and the future administration of sales taxes.
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By citing "various fissile materials," the North may be signaling that it has a second source of nuclear material besides the plutonium from Yongbyon reactor — a program to produce highly enriched uranium that it disclosed to a visiting American nuclear physicist in 2010.
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The institute they worked for is developing small-scale power sources that use "radioactive materials, including fissile and radioisotope materials" for the Defense Ministry and civilian uses, Vyacheslav Soloviev, scientific director of the institute, said on local TV, according to the news outlet.
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Perry has been quietly working with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear agreement that could allow the kingdom to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, technologies that nonproliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
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The threats to ramp up enrichment, made by Tehran's nuclear agency spokesman, would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in the past week to nudge stocks of fissile material just beyond limits in the pact that Washington abandoned last year.
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He continues to get revenue while building up his stockpile of fissile material, adding to the amount he already has for about 38 nuclear warheads, according to a recent estimate by Siegfried S. Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
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But Washington insists that North Korea has often cheated in past negotiations, and first wants the North to take more concrete steps toward denuclearization — such as submitting a full list of its nuclear weapons and fissile materials for verification — before being rewarded.
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"(International Atomic Energy Agency) Director General Yukiya Amano has informed the IAEA Board of Governors that Agency inspectors on 8 July verified that Iran is enriching uranium above 3.67% U-235," an IAEA spokesman said, referring to the fissile uranium-235 isotope.
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The deal, which lifted international sanctions against Tehran in exchange for limits on its uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities, is aimed at keeping Tehran at least a year away from accumulating enough fissile material for an atomic bomb if it sought one.
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By crossing certain thresholds at a low-level, Tehran can slowly chip away at the JCPOA's constraints, such as its promised one-year breakout timeline, an estimate of time needed for Iran to produce enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon.
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In the absence of international inspections (inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency were last at Yongbyon in April 2009), it's very difficult to establish the role of such plants, or estimate how much fissile material and nuclear warheads North Korea has accumulated.
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Or it could take further steps away from its nuclear agreement of 239, having this month resumed low grade uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow nuclear plant to 29.5% of fissile purity, not far from the 235% level required for nuclear bomb fuel.
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Last month, Iran scaled back some commitments under the 2015 deal and warned that in 60 days it would resume refining uranium to a higher fissile degree than that permitted by the accord if Europe failed to shield its trade from U.S. sanctions.
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"A freeze on fissile material, nuclear weapons, and missile production at Yongbyon and beyond — when North Korea does not even acknowledge enrichment facilities outside Yongbyon — without some sanctions relief, seems unlikely," said Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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But it should be done clearly in the course of a step-by-step phase movement in which we get what we need to get and it means performance on the nuclear weapons, nuclear program, productions, capability, fissile material, and their ballistic missile program.
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Trump&aposs questionable claim afterward that the North was no longer a nuclear threat was soon displaced by doubts about how to achieve denuclearization, a goal that has eluded U.S. administrations for the past quarter-century since Pyongyang began producing fissile material for bombs.
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Evidence collected since the Singapore summit points to preparations to deceive the U.S. about the number of nuclear warheads in North Korea&aposs arsenal as well as the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs, according to the report.
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One major challenge for summit organizers in trying to move beyond terrorism to address military stockpiles in places like Russia or Pakistan is that the United States is the only country that has declared the gross size of its weapons and military fissile materials.
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"Pyongyang chose to capitalize on the political and diplomatic utility of nuclear weapons by accepting crippling limits on its plutonium-based fissile material program in return for a better relationship with the United States that would diminish external security threats," Wit and Ahn explain.
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Formally the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement lifted nuclear-related international and American sanctions on Iran in exchange for physical, verifiable curbs on Iran's ability to produce or stockpile fissile material for nuclear weapons for at least 10 to 15 years.
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But before the 2015 deal went into action the country was enriching uranium — the fissile material required for a bomb — at 20%, far above the 3.67% level required for an energy program and roughly three months away from reaching 90% enrichment, or weapons-grade uranium.
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Iran threatened on Monday to restart deactivated centrifuges and ramp up uranium enrichment to 20% purity, a move that would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in the past week to nudge stocks of fissile material just beyond limits in the pact.
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In the chaos surrounding the end of the Cold War, the United States embarked on a sweeping program to secure the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal and fissile materials by returning them to Russia from former Soviet states and upgrading security at storage areas.
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Washington (CNN)New satellite images show North Korea has made rapid improvements to the infrastructure at its Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center -- a facility used to produce weapons-grade fissile material, according to an analysis published by 38 North, a prominent North Korea monitoring group.
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Dismantling Yongbyon would slow the production of fissile material, but not reduce the current stockpile of plutonium and HEU, nor clear suspicions of other secret production sites, says Joshua Pollack, a North Korea missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
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"North Korea has matter that's fissile It looks like they're making a missile Not to be crude We are so screwed Unless we can get your dismissal" — SETH MEYERS One thing the president does seem to read is positive coverage of his own administration.
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They said it was positive that Tehran had not threatened to enrich uranium to a fissile purity of 20% - a critical threshold attained before 2015 that moved it much closer to the 90% concentration required for bomb material - and that IAEA inspections would continue.
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The administration insisted that meant Mr. Kim would give up his nuclear weapons, his stockpile of fissile material and his missiles, but the North argued that it also meant the United States would withdraw troops and offshore ships and submarines that could launch nuclear weapons.
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So, short of immediate denuclearization, the logical next step is for Washington to push for a freeze on production not only of the bombs themselves, but also of missiles and the fissile material — the plutonium and highly enriched uranium — that can be used to make more bombs.
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Evidence collected since the June 12 summit in Singapore points to preparations to deceive the U.S. about the number of nuclear warheads in North Korea's arsenal as well as the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs, according to the report.
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The processes which produce fuel for civilian plants can also be used to produce crucial fissile material for weapons, and the training, research and industrial capabilities that come with an indigenous civilian nuclear programme can be very helpful for other purposes, such as nuclear submarines programmes.
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The standardization of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power with a firm hold on the technology for producing and using various fissile materials.
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Another reason may be cost: fuel fabrication costs using thorium are driven up due to the high level of radioactivity built up in U-233, the fissile fuel material that thorium can get transformed into when it's bombarded with neutrons, according to the World Nuclear Association.
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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been working with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear agreement that could allow the kingdom to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, practices that non-proliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
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As laid out by Pompeo last year, these include Tehran ending uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fissile material for atomic bombs; giving U.N. nuclear inspectors total access to sites throughout the country; releasing U.S. citizens held in Iran and withdrawing Iranian forces from Syria.
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The standardization of the nuclear warhead will enable the D.P.R.K. to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power with a firm hold on the technology for producing and using various fissile materials.
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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani explained in a television appearance Wednesday that his country would no longer abide by some of its commitments in the deal regarding the production of fissile material, a year after President Donald Trump announced the US was pulling out of the accord.
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"Chairman Kim told me that besides the moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and missiles, he would dismantle the facilities that produce them, as well as all the nuclear weapons and fissile materials his country owns, if the United States takes corresponding measures," Mr. Moon said this month.
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Non-proliferation advocates worry that allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich fuel in a nuclear power deal could also enable it to one day covertly produce fissile material and set off an arms race with arch-rival Iran that could spread more broadly throughout the Middle East.
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The 21 accord's many restrictions on Iran's atomic activities were built around one objective: to extend the "breakout time" Tehran would need to produce enough fissile material for one atomic bomb - if it decided to do so - to at least a year from around 22009-29 months.
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The ball is in Washington's court In the agreement signed Wednesday, Pyongyang pledged to destroy both the Tongchang-ri missile engine test site and the Yongbyon nuclear site, which is believed to be used for the production of fissile material, if the United States takes reciprocal measures.
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But in the meantime, we need a more manageable interim goal — some version of a verifiable freeze on the North's testing of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles and its production of fissile nuclear materials, in exchange for modest but real concessions by the rest of us.
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Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said last year the kingdom would develop nuclear arms if Iran did, and its new energy minister said last week that it wanted to enrich uranium for its nuclear power program - which can also potentially produce fissile material for a bomb.
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It said it was unclear what type of material was being transported, but the relatively small size and number of casks on the railcars suggested outbound shipment of small quantities of irradiated liquid or solid waste, contaminated equipment, or movement of fissile material to facilities outside Yongbyon.
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The premature end to the negotiations leaves the unusual rapprochement between the United States and North Korea that has unfolded for most of a year at a deadlock, with the North retaining both its nuclear arsenal and facilities believed to be producing additional fissile material for warheads.
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Back in the United States, Trump is tweeting about his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He says there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea even though experts estimate that Kim&aposs government has enough fissile material for 20 to 60 bombs.
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And on the Iran deal, the director of national intelligence said the implementation of the nuclear deal struck by the Obama administration had extended the amount of time Iran would need to produce the fissile material for a nuclear weapon from a few months to about a year.
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The nuclear deal, under which international sanctions against Iran were lifted, was tailored to extending the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it sought one - something sometimes referred to as "breakout time" - to about a year from 2-3 months.
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"The existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula and the actions and policies of the Government of North Korea continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States," the notice read.
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Trump declared on Twitter that the country was no longer a nuclear threat and that the US is safer in the wake of his summit meeting with the North Korean leader, but Menendez noted Pyongyang still retains its missiles, its command of the nuclear fissile process and other capabilities.
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Neither the San Antonio police nor Idaho National Laboratory would disclose the amount of missing plutonium and cesium to the Center for Public Integrity, but a spokesperson for the lab said it wasn't enough plutonium to make a nuclear bomb, which requires about seven pounds of the fissile material.
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The 2015 accord&aposs many restrictions on Iran&aposs atomic activities were built around one objective: to extend the "breakout time" Tehran would need to produce enough fissile material for one atomic bomb — if it decided to do so — to at least a year from around 2-3 months.
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Reasonable constraints would include opening up declared North Korean facilities to international inspectors, halting further production of fissile material and ballistic missiles, codifying Mr. Kim's announced testing freezes and nonproliferation pledge and obtaining firm commitments from North Korea to declare the totality of its nuclear and missile infrastructure.
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Iran's increasing capacity to enrich uranium to higher levels of fissile purity was one of the burning issues during years of negotiations with world powers, which wanted enrichment limited to research scale to minimize the risk of Iran being able to assemble a nuclear explosive at short notice.
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Iran's signal of preparedness to stockpile enriched uranium beyond the deal's limit, and refine uranium to a fissile purity higher than deemed necessary for civilian uses, prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to warn on Tuesday he was ready to take military action to stop Tehran developing a nuclear bomb.
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Following are details of what this means: The July 23.67 nuclear deal aims, for the next decade, to extend the amount of time it would theoretically take Iran to produce enough fissile material for an atomic bomb - so-called breakout time - from several months to a minimum of one year.
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In the immediate days after the strike on Soleimani, Iran announced that it would be shrugging off its restrictions on uranium enrichment under the nuclear deal that blocks its pathway to a bomb — in effect, clearing the way to stockpiling enough fissile material to produce a weapon if it so wants.
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Iran said last week it had resumed low-grade uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow nuclear plant and at the weekend said it could refine up to 60% of fissile purity, not far off the 90% level needed for nuclear bomb fuel - its most significant breaches of the deal with world powers.
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The irony is that if Iran had become less aggressive in the region after the JCPOA, there might be less fear about Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state in 2030 with zero break-out time for producing weapons-grade fissile material — the consequence of the JCPOA's limitations on Iranian enrichment ending then.
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Trump should follow that path, argues Litwak: Get North Korea to freeze its nuclear warheads at present levels — around 15 — freeze all production of weapons-usable fissile material and freeze all ballistic missile testing — so it cannot hit the U.S. — in return for an easing of economic sanctions and some economic aid.
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" But according to a report issued by top US intelligence officials last week, Iran's "continued implementation" of the deal — even after Trump pulled the US out of it — "has extended the amount of time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon from a few months to about one year.
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Independent experts say the North could have enough fissile material for anywhere between about a dozen and 60 nuclear bombs, and last year it tested long-range missiles that could reach the U.S. Trump is also wrong to say there was an assumption before he took office that the United States would go to war.
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Additionally, if the IAEA suspects that covert efforts are underway to produce fissile material, such as enriched uranium, or advance Iran's nuclear program in a way not permitted under the deal, it is their prerogative to request additional information and inspections until they are satisfied that no violation of the JCPOA is taking place.
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One alternative would be a package of immediate but incomplete steps (a ban on missile and weapons testing and ICBM deployments, razing key nuclear facilities, a full declaration of nuclear assets and the symbolic surrender of some amount of fissile material) and a formal pledge of full denuclearization within a longer, but reasonable, time frame.
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"The process will take a few hours to stabilize and by Saturday, when International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will again visit the site, an...enrichment level of 21% will have been achieved," AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV. Enrichment of uranium to such a low level of fissile purity would be broadly suitable for civilian electricity generation.
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Strengthening the moratorium on explosive tests of nuclear devices and agreeing to stop production of fissile materials for use in bombs and missile warheads would be valuable steps in rebuilding momentum toward nuclear weapons reductions to the levels of 1,000 each for the United States and Russia, as President Obama suggested in a speech in Berlin.
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And just last week, Secretary of State Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoCotton warns China: Crackdown on Hong Kong would be 'grave miscalculation' Pompeo expresses concern over North Korea missile tests Pompeo acknowledges 'places where ISIS is more powerful today' MORE confirmed in Senate testimony that North Korean factories "continue to produce fissile material" used in making nuclear weapons.
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Inextricably linked to this divide within the Trump administration has been a lack of clarity from Washington about whether it would accept a gradual, step-by-step process—a freeze on fissile material production, a declaration of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, for example—or whether it is requiring North Korea to get rid of its weapons immediately.
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"We keep reminding the Japanese of their pledge," said Ernest J. Moniz, chief executive of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and an energy secretary in the Obama administration, noting that it would take years if not decades for Japan to consume its fissile material because almost all its nuclear plants have remained offline since the 2011 Fukushima accident.
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While that is clearly over the line set by the deal - which as a whole was aimed at increasing the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to a year from 2-3 months - it is still well below the 20% level Iran reached before the deal.
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"The existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula and the actions and policies of the government of North Korea continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States," read the notice, delivered through the press secretary on Friday.
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A report published today by the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), an independent research group based at Princeton University, claims that Russia possesses the world's largest stockpile of highly enriched uranium—the main ingredient in nuclear weapons—and that this stockpile poses "significant nuclear risks" and hampers international efforts to reduce the production of enriched uranium.
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Background: On the first anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from the accord, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani laid out two 60-day timetables for nuclear escalation: For the first 60 days, Tehran would surpass domestic stockpile caps of its low-enriched uranium (fissile material that can be further enriched to weapons-grade) and heavy water (used as a moderator in Iran's IR–40 reactor).
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So now China's ambivalence has led to this crisis: North Korea has enough fissile material for perhaps as many as 21 nuclear bombs and, after a flurry of missile tests, is approaching the day when it can produce a warhead small enough to fit on a missile and threaten the United States as well as American allies in the region.
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On "Face the Nation" and "Fox News Sunday," Bolton refused to talk about a Washington Post report that US intelligence officials have concluded North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile and is preparing to deceive the US about the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal and the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material.
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In his annual New Year's speech, Kim declared that North Korea "would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them," but it does not appear to have halted weapons production and a Stanford University study released this month said it may have produced enough fissile material in the past year to have added as many as seven nuclear weapons to its arsenal.
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If the country is producing bombs similar in yield to the one that America dropped on Hiroshima—that is, of 903 to 20 kilotons, which would be small by modern standards, but would therefore require less-capable missiles for their delivery—his central projection is that it can produce enough fissile material for around seven warheads a year and that its current stockpile is about 20.
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"There is no new information and the concern that Mr. Netanyahu emphasized that Iran retains residual technical knowledge that is useful in constructing a weapon is exactly the reason the [Iran deal] should be upheld -- to deny Iran the fissile material necessary to execute that knowledge," Thomas Countryman, a former Obama administration State Department official and current Diplomacy Works Advisory Council member, said in a statement.
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That policy failed to constrain a program that has produced enough fissile material for about 21 nuclear bombs and enabled Pyongyang to accelerate the development of missiles that could carry warheads to hit Japan, South Korea and, one day, the United States — and that has people like China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, warning of a "head-on collision" between North Korea and the United States.
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Ed MarkeyEdward (Ed) John MarkeyJoseph Kennedy mulling primary challenge to Markey in Massachusetts Overnight Energy: Trump sparks new fight over endangered species protections | States sue over repeal of Obama power plant rules | Interior changes rules for ethics watchdogs To cash in on innovation, remove market barriers for advanced energy technologies MORE (D-Mass.) that North Korea continues to produce fissile material, which is the fuel for a nuclear weapon.
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"If America pulls out of the deal ... Iran could resume its 20 percent uranium enrichment in less than 48 hours," Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, told al-Alam TV. Uranium refined to 20 percent fissile purity is well beyond the 5 percent normally required to fuel civilian nuclear power plants, though still well short of highly enriched, or 80-90 percent, purity needed for a nuclear bomb.
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A new deal, as Secretary of State Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoCotton warns China: Crackdown on Hong Kong would be 'grave miscalculation' Pompeo expresses concern over North Korea missile tests Pompeo acknowledges 'places where ISIS is more powerful today' MORE articulated in a landmark speech last year, should include tougher provisions that unambiguously prevent Iran from engaging in all three stages of nuclear weapons development — fissile materials, weaponization, and means of delivery.
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Inevitably, we'll end up with one or a combination of a hostile, unstable foe that will have approximately 85033 to 50 nuclear weapons capable of hitting all of South Korea and Japan in as little as five years, and in 10 years, a missile system capable of hitting the continental United States; a sanctions-squeezed North selling fissile material — which in the wrong hands could obliterate a city — to the highest international bidder; or another war on the Korean Peninsula.
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