North Korea has offered a rare glimpse into one of its secretive uranium enrichment facilities, with leader Kim Jong Un urging the introduction of more centrifuges for the weapons-grade material needed to “exponentially increase” the number of nuclear bombs in its arsenal.
Kim inspected the country’s Nuclear Weapons Institute and the unnamed facility for producing weapons-grade nuclear materials, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday, without specifying the date.
Photos accompanying the report showed the North Korean leader walking with other officials in a massive hall containing row after row of centrifuges that enrich uranium by spinning it at high speeds.
The images are believed to be the first public glimpse into the state’s opaque nuclear program, which is banned under multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. The pictures could give outside experts and intelligence agencies a better understanding of how many and what types of nuclear weapons the North has produced and intends to build in the future.
During the visit to the control room and worksite at the uranium facility, the North Korean leader “stressed the need to further augment the number of centrifuges in order to exponentially increase” the country’s nuclear arsenal, including by pushing forward the introduction of an already completed “new-type centrifuge,” the report said.
He also urged workers at the site “to set a higher long-term goal in producing nuclear materials necessary for the manufacture of tactical nuclear weapons,” calling the arsenal vital for "self-defense” and a "preemptive attack" capability in the face of "anti-DPRK nuclear threats" from "U.S. imperialists-led vassal forces" that have crossed a “red-line.” The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the North's official name.
The North has increasingly focused on building more smaller tactical nuclear weapons intended for use on the battlefield, and any scaled-up uranium development could signal that Kim hopes to use the material in the bombs’ cores.
Asked about Kim’s visit, Japan’s top government spokesman said that Tokyo was paying close attention to North Korea’s military activities and working to collect and analyze information, but did not directly comment on the trip.
“North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and missiles threatens the peace and security of our country and the international community, and this is something that we cannot accept under any circumstances,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference Friday.
North Korea has long been thought to operate at least two uranium enrichment facilities, one at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and another at its secretive Kangson site a few kilometers south-southeast of Pyongyang.
But Friday’s revelations signal that the pariah state no longer sees any need to hide its uranium enrichment push — which it initially denied in 2002, when accused by U.S. authorities of the move. That denial ultimately helped precipitate the collapse of the 1994 Agreed Framework between Pyongyang and Washington, which envisioned North Korea abandoning its nuclear development in exchange for the construction of light water reactors on its territory.
The North first showed off a uranium enrichment site at Yongbyon to visiting American scholars in 2010, claiming at the time that 2,000 centrifuges were already installed and running there. Analysis of satellite imagery in recent years indicated that Pyongyang was expanding its uranium enrichment plant at the Yongbyon complex.
North Korea uses highly enriched uranium and plutonium for its nuclear bombs, and Yongbyon has facilities that produce both, though it is unclear exactly how much it has and can produce or where this fissile material is stored.
Kim vowed in a speech earlier this week that his country “will not set a limit” on the number of nuclear weapons it builds.
North Korea is believed to have produced enough fissile material to produce up to 90 nuclear warheads, but is thought to have assembled fewer, perhaps up to 50, according to a June estimate by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
In 2021, Kim unveiled a five-year plan to expand his atomic arsenal, building smaller “tactical” and “supersized” warheads, as well as “preemptive” and “retaliatory” strike capabilities that would allow North Korean nuclear bombs to “strike and annihilate” targets 15,000 kilometers away.
Three years later, the country stipulated the policy of strengthening its nuclear force in its constitution and over the summer tested a missile it said could deliver multiple nuclear warheads to targets. That test was just the latest in a spate of weapons tests intended to diversify the country’s increasingly potent arsenal.
In the latest example of this, KCNA said in separate reports Friday that Kim had overseen the test launch of a new 600 mm multiple launch rocket system a day earlier while also inspecting the training base of the North Korean army’s “special operation armed force” on Wednesday.
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