Soldiers dispatched to institute that monitors weapons tests
The South Korean government and military are ramping up their surveillance regarding the North’s next moves, in the wake of the communist country’s missile launches on July 5 local time, and the U.N. Security Council’s subsequent resolution against the North, sources said. The sources also said that six soldiers were dispatched to the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources in Daejeon. Officials at the center deny any link between the military personnel dispatch and the North’s possible nuclear experiments, although the institute has been monitoring the North’s nuclear activities at 30 observatories across the nation since 1996 when the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed. An institute official said that they have capability to detect a nuclear experiment in North Korea within a few hours. "The dispatch is part of efforts to take the management of [a seismological center in Wonju, Gangwon Province] from the U.S. Army, and has nothing to do with the beefing up of nuclear monitoring," said an official of the institute.However, experts have raised suspicion over the connection, saying that it is a rare case for a private research institute to ask for a personnel dispatch from the military. And, according to one military official, their suspicions are correct: "The institute made the request for the dispatch of [civilian soldiers] serving at public agencies, citing as a reason an increase in work related to the North’s nuclear experiments," a military official said on condition of anonymity. The Wonju center is the observatory most closely located to the North. Given its proximity, a nuclear experiment performed within a 50-60 kilometer radius of the observatory could be detected in a few minutes, but it would take more than two hours to detect waves from an experiment 200 kilometers away, an institute official said. The soldiers dispatched reportedly studied materials science, geology, and other related majors before joining the military.
