North Korean nuclear chief sought private training at Paks plant
By Eleanor Voss ·
Official diplomatic channels were bypassed in 1983 when a North Korean official sought technical training in Hungary to prepare for his country's first nuclear reactor.
In early March 1983, a delegation of government representatives gathered in Dubna, Soviet Union, for a session at the United Institute for Nuclear Research. Among them was István Láng, a Hungarian representative, and Professor Choe Hak-geun, the chairman of the National Atomic Energy Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In a private conversation between the two men, Choe made a specific request for technical assistance that bypassed formal diplomatic channels in its first instance.
According to a published English translation (original language: Hungarian) from the Cold War International History Project, the exchange was later formalized in a memorandum from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry. Láng reported that Choe asked him to forward a request to the "competent Hungarian authorities" regarding the training of Korean experts.
Dubna, March 1983
Dubna served as the scientific nexus of the Eastern Bloc, a place where the Soviet Union coordinated high-level research with its satellite states and ideological partners. For a representative of the DPRK, it was the ideal environment to gauge the technical capabilities of other socialist nations. Choe Hak-geun was not merely a scientist; as the head of the National Atomic Energy Commission, he was the primary architect of North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
The private nature of the request is telling. By approaching Láng in a sidebar conversation rather than through a formal diplomatic note, Choe was testing the waters of Hungarian willingness. The memo records that the DPRK intended to follow up "through official diplomatic channels," but the initial seed was planted in the corridors of a Soviet research institute. This suggests a layer of informal diplomacy common to the era, where technical experts often smoothed the way for state-level agreements.
"Operating and Managing"
The core of the request was precise. Choe asked Hungary to receive Korean experts for training in the field of "operating and managing a nuclear power plant." The target for this training was Paks, the site of Hungary's sole nuclear power facility.
At the time, the Paks Nuclear Power Plant was the centerpiece of Hungary's energy strategy, utilizing Soviet-designed VVER-440 pressurized water reactors. For North Korea, which the memo notes would "soon start building its first nuclear power plant," Paks represented a functioning model of the technology they intended to deploy. The VVER reactors were the standard export of the Soviet nuclear industry, designed for reliability and ease of integration within the socialist economic sphere. Training in Hungary would have provided the DPRK with a practical, operational perspective on how to maintain a Soviet reactor outside of the USSR itself.
This request for expertise in "operating and managing" highlights a critical gap in North Korean capabilities in 1983. While the DPRK had access to theoretical knowledge and Soviet blueprints, the actual day-to-day management of a grid-connected reactor is a different discipline. They were not seeking the secrets of enrichment or weaponization in this specific request, but the mundane, essential skills of plant stabilization and safety management.
Paks Training
The memorandum ends with Láng simply passing along Choe's request to the Foreign Ministry. It does not record the Hungarian government's response or whether the training ever took place. However, the request places the DPRK's early nuclear trajectory in a broader context of inter-bloc cooperation. North Korea often played its partners against one another, seeking technical redundancies to ensure that no single state—including the Soviet Union—held total leverage over its energy infrastructure.
While the public record of North Korea's nuclear history is now dominated by its pursuit of weapons, this 1983 document captures a moment of conventional industrial aspiration. The DPRK was attempting to enter the club of nuclear-powered states by leveraging the expertise of a fellow Warsaw Pact member.
Other archives, such as those held by the NSArchive, contain later reports on North Korean cyber and space capabilities, but they do not touch upon these early 1980s diplomatic overtures regarding civilian power. The memorandum from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences leaves the outcome of the request unanswered. It remains unclear if the Korean experts ever arrived in Paks, or if the "official diplomatic channels" mentioned by Professor Choe ever produced a signed agreement.