The South Korean government confirmed yesterday that North Korea has shut down its major reactor.

Through a number of intelligence channels, the US had recently made sure that the reactor was shut down. A South Korean official said the United States believes that the shutdown took place this month.

At this stage, North Korea states it has completed reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods which had been taken from the reactor. In February, North Korea announced that it has nuclear arms in its possession. Reprocessing of the used fuel rods would bring enough plutonium to build two to three bombs.

As far as the reason for this month’s shutdown is shady, Seoul officials consider the shutdown to be nothing more than a diplomatic bluff that is aimed at.