A U.S. expert on North Korean affairs says Pyongyang is aiming to complete the construction of an experimental light-water reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear facility by 2012.

Jack Pritchard, the head of the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute, told South Korean correspondents in the U.S. that North Korean officials told him during a visit there earlier in the month that the North is building a light-water reactor in Yongbyon.

Pritchard said that he has reported the details of his trip to Washington, including his visit to Yongbyon where he saw construction had begun on a project near the site of a cooling tower that was destroyed by the North in June of 2008.

He quoted a North Korean official as saying that the new 100-megawatt light-water reactor is one-tenth the size of a reactor built by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) in South Hamgyeong Province.

KEDO was founded by the U.S., South Korea and Japan to implement an agreement to construct a light-water reactor in the North. The organization halted its construction of reactors in South Hamgyeong in November of 2003.