The decision could lead to the resumption of a program that has been shelved since a 1995 leak at the Monju plutonium reactor in Tsuruga, 350 kilometers ( 220 miles ) west of Tokyo.
22.
The accident is renewing calls for Japan to abandon its controversial plutonium reactor project, as other major nations have done, in favor of concentrating on conventional reactors which use cheaper and less toxic uranium.
23.
North Korean officials responded by kicking international nuclear inspectors out of the country and announcing that they were going to restart the 5-megawatt plutonium reactor at Yongbyon that had been shuttered and monitored during the Clinton years.
24.
Asked if he had raised the issue of why, if that was the case, North Korea was resuming work at one weapons-grade plutonium reactor and continuing work at two other reactors, Richardson said he had nothing to add.
25.
But Pike said the satellite pictures of Pakistan's buildup at the plutonium reactor at Khushab and the nearby missile base at Sargodha in the central part of the nation show the low odds of Pakistan simply giving up its program.
26.
Members of Congress from South Carolina wanted Richardson to build a linear accelerator at Savannah River, and some officials near Hanford, the nuclear reservation in central Washington state, wanted Richardson to use the Fast Flux Test Facility, a plutonium reactor there.
27.
Perry, secretary of defense under Clinton, helped shape and maintain the agreement that froze North Korea's plutonium reactor and laid out a new agreement of mutual concessions in 1999 after North Korea sparked an international crisis by firing a missile over Japan.
28.
Nishimura, 49, worked at the Tokyo-based corporation that manages the experimental Monju plutonium reactor in Tsuruga, 350 kilometers ( 220 miles ) west of Tokyo, where tons of caustic sodium coolant spilled from a secondary cooling system, overheating the reactor on Dec . 8.
29.
A U . S .-Russian deal under which Washington was to help phase out the plutonium reactors was first signed in 1997, and was celebrated as a historic event in the costly U . S . campaign to ensure that Moscow safeguarded and reduced its vast nuclear stockpile.
30.
The official said the United States had hoped that the meetings in New Mexico would yield " a willingness by North Korea to address the issues of their nuclear weapons programs, " in particular its removal of cameras and inspectors at the plutonium reactor at Yongbyon and the existence of a program to make highly enriched uranium.
