Expert: Reactor gives NKorea more bargaining power

North Korea's restart of a plutonium reactor could strengthen not just its nuclear weapons program but its negotiating position if aid-for-disarmament talks resume, a top US expert says.

But Siegfried Hecker, a scientist who has previously been granted unusual access to North Korea's nuclear facilities, says that by putting the five megawatt reactor at the Nyongbyon nuclear complex back into action after disabling it in 2007, the North has complicated any future talks immensely. (AP)