Seoul, South Korea — North Korea offered a rare glimpse into a secret facility to produce weapons-grade uranium as state media reported Friday that the leader Kim Jong Un He visited the region and called for greater efforts to “exponentially” increase its number of nuclear weapons.
It is unclear whether the site is at North Korea’s main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, but it is the North’s first disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility since it showed one at Yongbyon to visiting American academics in 2010. Although the latest revelation is likely an attempt to to put more pressure on the United States and its alliesImages released by North Korean media from the region could provide outsiders with a valuable source of information to estimate the amount of nuclear ingredients North Korea is producing.
During a visit to the nuclear weapons institute and the plant producing weapons-grade nuclear materials, Kim repeatedly expressed “great satisfaction with the formidable technical strength in the nuclear energy field” possessed by North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
According to KCNA, Kim Jong Un visited the control room of the uranium enrichment plant and a construction site that would increase its nuclear weapons production capacity. Photos from North Korean state media show Kim Jong Un being briefed by scientists while walking along long lines of centrifuges. KCNA did not specify when Kim Jong Un visited the facilities or where they are located.
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According to KCNA, Kim Jong Un stressed the need to further increase the number of centrifuges to “exponentially increase nuclear weapons for self-defense,” a goal he has repeatedly stated in recent years. Kim Jong Un ordered officials to push forward the introduction of a new type of centrifuge.
Kim said North Korea needed more defense and preemptive attack capabilities because “the anti-(North Korean) nuclear threats by the vassal forces led by the U.S. imperialists have become more blatant and have crossed the red line,” KCNA said.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry has strongly condemned North Korea’s efforts to strengthen its nuclear capability. In a statement, the ministry said North Korea’s “illegal” pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of U.N. bans poses a serious threat to international peace. It added that North Korea must understand that it cannot gain anything from its nuclear program.
It was in November 2010 that North Korea showed the outside world its Yongbyon uranium enrichment site. It allowed a delegation of researchers from Stanford University, led by nuclear physicist Siegfried Hecker, to tour its centrifuges. North Korean officials reportedly told Hecker that 2,000 centrifuges were installed and operating at Yongbyon.
Satellite images taken in recent years have shown that North Korea is expanding a uranium enrichment plant at Yongbyon. Nuclear weapons can be made from highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and North Korea has facilities to produce both at Yongbyon. Some U.S. and South Korean experts believe that North Korea secretly operates at least one other uranium enrichment plant.
It is unclear how much weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium has been produced at Yongbyon and elsewhere. In 2018, a senior South Korean official told parliament that North Korea may have already produced between 20 and 60 nuclear weapons, but some experts estimate the North likely has more than 100. Estimates of how many nuclear bombs North Korea can add each year vary, from six to 18.
“For analysts outside the country, the released images will provide a valuable source of information to correct our assumptions about how much material North Korea may have amassed to date,” said Ankit Panda, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Overall, we should not assume that North Korea will be as constrained as it once was by limitations on fissile materials. This is particularly true for highly enriched uranium, where North Korea is significantly less constrained in its ability to increase production than it is for plutonium,” Panda said.
In 2018, researchers at Hecker and Stanford University estimated that North Korea’s inventory of highly enriched uranium was 250 to 500 kilograms (550 to 1,100 pounds), enough for 25 to 30 nuclear devices.
North Korean photos released Friday show about 1,000 centrifuges. If they were operated year-round, they would be capable of producing 20 to 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, enough to create a single bomb, according to Yang Uk, a security expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
The new type of centrifuge Kim wants to introduce is likely an advanced carbon-fiber model that could enable North Korea to produce five to 10 times more highly enriched uranium than its current centrifuges, said Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Institute for Science and Technology Policy.
Since 2022, North Korea has sharply stepped up its weapons testing activities to expand and modernize its nuclear missile arsenal targeting the United States and South Korea. Analysts say North Korea could conduct a nuclear test explosion or a long-range missile test before the November U.S. presidential election in an effort to influence the outcome and increase its leverage in future relations with the Americans.
“The overall message they’re trying to convey is that their nuclear capability is not just an idle threat, but they’re continuing to produce (bomb fuel),” Yang said. “And who are they targeting? It could be South Korea, of course, but it could certainly be the United States.”
Kim’s recent nuclear offensive comes as North Korea deepen military cooperation with RussiaThe United States and South Korea have accused North Korea of providing conventional weapons needed to support Russia’s war in Ukraine in exchange for military and economic aid.
On Friday, a Russian delegation led by the country’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu visited North Korea and met with Kim for talks on bilateral and international issues, Russian media reported. In July 2023, Shoigu, then serving as defense minister, visited North Korea and met with Kim.
