North Korea unveils uranium enrichment plant as Kim calls for more nuclear weapons

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has offered a rare glimpse of a secret facility designed to produce weapons-grade uranium, as state media reported Friday that leader Kim Jong Un visited the area and called for greater efforts to “exponentially” increase its nuclear weapons.

It is unclear whether the site is part of North Korea’s main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, but it is the North’s first public disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility since it showed one at Yongbyon to visiting American academics in 2010. While the latest revelation is likely an attempt to put more pressure on the United States and its allies, images of the area released by North Korean media could provide outsiders with a valuable source of information for estimating how much nuclear material North Korea has produced.

During a visit to the nuclear weapons institute and the production base of 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 base 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 rows of large gray tubes, but KCNA did not specify when Kim Jong Un visited the facilities and where they are located.

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 advance the introduction of a new type of centrifuge, which has reached its completion stage.

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 crossed the red line,” KCNA said.

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 already installed and operating at Yongbyon.

Satellite images in recent years have shown that North Korea is expanding a uranium enrichment plant at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. Nuclear weapons can be made from highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and North Korea has facilities to produce both at Yongbyon. It is unclear how much weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium has been produced at Yongbyon or where North Korea stores them.

“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.

Some U.S. and South Korean experts believe that North Korea secretly operates at least one other uranium enrichment plant. In 2018, a senior South Korean official told parliament that North Korea may have already built as many as 60 nuclear weapons. Estimates of how many nuclear bombs North Korea can add each year vary, from six to 18.

Since 2022, North Korea has sharply stepped up its weapons testing activities to expand and modernize its arsenal of nuclear missiles targeting the United States and South Korea. Analysts say North Korea could conduct nuclear tests or long-range missile tests before the November U.S. presidential election in an effort to influence the outcome and increase its leverage in future relations with the Americans.

North Korea on Thursday test-fired several short-range ballistic missiles. Apparently referring to the launches, KCNA said Kim supervised the test-firing of multiple 600mm nuclear-capable missiles to examine the performance of their new launchers.

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