South Korea Pledges $45 Million For Nuclear Plants In North Korea

South Korea said Thursday it will provide $45 million for an international consortium to start building two nuclear plants in North Korea.

Seoul will foot most of the $5 billion bill for the nuclear plants in exchange for North Korea’s promise to freeze a nuclear program suspected of developing atomic weapons.

The new reactors are safer and produce far less weapons-grade plutonium than the North’s outdated Soviet-designed system.

North Korea claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but western experts think the communist country might have obtained enough plutonium to make at least one bomb.

Under a 1994 deal with the United States, North Korea is required to freeze and eventually scrap its old nuclear program.