South Korea, US reach deal on nuclear energy pact

South Korea and the US on Wednesday revised their 42-year-old civil nuclear energy agreement, opening the doors for South Korea to reprocess spent nuclear fuel sometime in the future.

The two countries initialled the revised agreement on bilateral civil nuclear cooperation in Seoul, Xinhua news agency cited South Korea's foreign ministry as saying.

Seoul and Washington launched negotiations in October 2010 to revise the deal, which came into effect in 1974. The agreement was originally terminated in March 2014, but the deadline was extended to March this year amid major differences on the revised draft.

South Korea, which generates about one-quarter of its electricity with nuclear reactors and exports nuclear power plant equipment and parts, wants to develop reprocessing, or at least pyro-processing, capabilities.

The revised agreement opened the door for South Korea to pyro-process spent fuel as research and development. It means that South Korea could pyro-process in the future if conditions are met.

The US has been worried that permitting South Korea to enrich uranium and reprocess spent fuel could make it difficult to deter other countries from seeking such technologies.

Washington has discouraged the spread of enrichment and reprocessing activities as these activities can be used to produce weapons-usable nuclear materials.