South Korea's foreign minister called Thursday for a new nuclear accord with the United States that would allow his country to reprocess plutonium for commercial civilian use.
An accord signed by the two close allies in 1974 stops South Korea separating plutonium from spent fuel from its civilian nuclear power plants. The pact expires in 2012.
"It's necessary to revise the US-SKorea nuclear accord at an early date," Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan told reporters.
He said South Korea should be allowed to have reprocessing facilities for the peaceful and commercial use of spent fuel from its nuclear plants.
US opponents believe such a move would send the wrong signal to nuclear-armed North Korea, which reprocesses plutonium to make bombs.
South Korea, which relies heavily on oil imports, has tried to diversify its energy sources. It has 20 commercial nuclear reactors which meet more than 30 percent of its electricity demand and plans to build more.
"Our country urgently needs independent reprocessing facilities because of a huge stockpile of spent fuel," a foreign ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has closely monitored South Korea's nuclear programme since the 1970s, when it scrapped an atomic weapons programme under pressure from Washington.
South Korean scientists conducted secret experiments in separating plutonium in the 1980s.
They also launched an unauthorised experiment in 2000 to enrich a small amount of uranium, raising concerns about a possible nuclear arms race on the Korean peninsula.
Since then Seoul has pledged not to acquire plutonium or uranium enrichment facilities.
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