North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is expected to preside over a major policy-setting meeting in coming days with renewed power, owing to advances by his country’s military and economy that allow him to rebuff U.S. pressure to wind down his nuclear arms programs.
Kim’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea will hold a plenary session of its Central Committee before the end of the year where it will lay out a path for 2024, state media has reported. While no dates have been given, in the past few years the event has taken place over several days in the last week on the calendar.
Kim is arguably at the peak of his power since he took office about a dozen years ago, with arms transfers to Russia in recent months likely boosting his sanctions-hit economy. His weapons program has also made significant gains that included the test this month of a new missile designed to deliver a warhead to the U.S. mainland, and the apparent commission of a long-stalled nuclear reactor that could significantly add to plutonium production.
"Nuclearization and bolstering his country’s military readiness will remain top-line items for Kim next year,” said Soo Kim, a former Korea analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency who now works at U.S.-based management consulting firm LMI.
Rather than trying to strike a deal with the current U.S. administration, the North Korean leader "may find it more constructive and beneficial to wait things out” until the presidential election in 2024 is over, Soo Kim said.
Meantime, Kim Jong Un has a new asset to further his nuclear ambitions: The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that North Korea had commissioned a light-water reactor (LWR) that has been in the works for years.
"The LWR, like any nuclear reactor, can produce plutonium in its irradiated fuel, which can be separated during reprocessing, so this is a cause for concern,” said Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the United Nations' atomic watchdog agency, in a statement.
While North Korea has relied in recent years on its uranium enrichment program to provide the bulk of its fissile material, the new reactor could produce 10 to 20 kilograms of plutonium a year, according to estimates from experts. The nation now produces about 6 kg of plutonium a year at what had been its sole nuclear reactor — enough for about one nuclear bomb, according to data compiled by the Congressional Research Service.
Plutonium is likely a better fit for the state’s miniaturized nuclear warheads than highly enriched uranium, experts have said, and the reactors used to produce the material are likely capable of producing tritium, which North Korea can use to build thermonuclear devices with far greater explosive force than a conventional nuclear bomb.
Twelve months ago Kim Jong Un pledged to increase his nuclear arsenal in the coming year to counter what he called hostile acts by the U.S. and South Korea. That vow came in a policy address where he left almost no opening for a return to long-stalled disarmament talks.
In 2023, his state has conducted missile tests that simulated nuclear strikes, fired off five intercontinental ballistic missiles and put its first spy satellite into orbit.
This month, Kim made a rare admission that North Korea faces a population crisis that could undermine the labor-intensive economy, and he may use the meeting to lay out plans to reverse a declining birthrate.
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