N. Korea shows off uranium lab

The U.S. envoy responsible for policy toward North Korea will be in Seoul on Monday and is expected to talk to South Korean officials about the North's new industrial-scale uranium enrichment lab.

Stephen Bosworth's visit follows the release on Saturday of a report by an American nuclear scientist who toured the facility two weeks ago.

Prof. Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University wrote that he was "stunned" by the sophistication and size of the lab.

He said the plant was "astonishingly modern" and he saw "'hundreds and hundreds'' of centrifuges. North Korean officials later told him the lab contained about 2,000 centrifuges.

North Korea says uranium processed at the lab will be used to produce electricity, but the potential for its use in nuclear weapons has prompted Washington's delegate to travel to Seoul.

The revelation could be designed to strengthen the North Korean government as it looks to transfer power from leader Kim Jong Il to a young, unproven son.

As Washington and others tighten sanctions, unveiling the centrifuges could also be an attempt by Pyongyang to force a resumption of stalled international nuclear disarmament-for-aid talks.

The facilities appeared to be primarily for civilian nuclear power, not for North Korea's nuclear arsenal, Hecker said.

He saw no evidence of continued plutonium production at Yongbyon. But, he said, the uranium enrichment facilities "could be readily converted to produce highly enriched uranium bomb fuel."