Just two years later, the Clinton administration threatened military strikes on the North when the U.S. and IAEA discovered that Pyongyang was diverting plutonium from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor for a secret atomic weapons program.

WSJ: Seoul Seeks Ability to Make Nuclear Fuel

Also on Wednesday, the watchdog decided to freeze further steps to bring the Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor online, criticizing Japan Atomic its operator for a series of significant safety lapses.

WSJ: Panel: Active Fault Runs Beneath Japan Reactor

U.S. and United Nations officials have documented what they describe as serious limitations in Iran's ability to quickly and efficiently produce the enriched uranium required to either fuel a nuclear power reactor or to build an atomic weapon.

WSJ: North Korea Nuclear Find Raises Fears It Will Share With Iran

This is the stuff that atomic bombs and nuclear reactor fuel are made from.

FORBES: Energy's Latest Battleground: Fracking For Uranium

Also on Wednesday, the watchdog decided to freeze further steps to bring the Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor online, criticizing the Japan Atomic Energy Agency its operator for a series of significant safety lapses.

WSJ: Panel: Active Fault Runs Beneath Japan Reactor

With plutonium no longer needed for use in the world's abandoned fast breeder reactor programmes and nuclear powers getting rid of their atomic weapons, large stockpiles of the highly toxic plutonium metal are starting to build up.

BBC: More suspect nuclear fuel found

Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy, Minatom, is keen to build a new nuclear reactor at Seversk, though it does not have the money at present.

ECONOMIST: The time-bombs of Tomsk

The facility, near the city of Dair Alzour, was seen as a replica of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which the North has used to extract the plutonium used in its atomic weapons.

WSJ: Iran-North Korea Pact Draws Concern