A TV screen shows an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news programme at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on September 13, 2024. The letters read, “North Korea, unveiling the uranium enrichment facility for the first time,” and “the construction site for expanding the capacity for the production of nuclear weapons.”
| Photo Credit: AP

North Korea offered a rare glimpse into a secretive facility to produce weapons-grade uranium as state media reported on Friday (September 13, 2024) that leader Kim Jong Un visited the area and called for stronger efforts to “exponentially” increase the number of his nuclear weapons.

It’s unclear if the site is at the North’s main Yongbyon nuclear complex, but it’s the North’s first disclosure of a uranium-enrichment facility since it showed one at Yongbyon to visiting American scholars in 2010.

While the latest unveiling is likely an attempt to apply more pressure on the U.S. and its allies, the images North Korea’s media released of the area could provide outsiders with a valuable source of information for estimating the amount of nuclear ingredients that North Korea has produced.

During a visit to the Nuclear Weapons Institute and the production base of weapon-grade nuclear materials, Mr. Kim expressed “great satisfaction repeatedly over the wonderful technical force of the nuclear power field” held by North Korea, the official Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) reported.

KCNA said Mr. Kim went around the control room of the uranium enrichment base and a construction site that would expand its capacity for producing nuclear weapons. North Korean state media photos showed Mr. Kim being briefed by scientists while walking along long lines of tall gray tubes, but KCNA didn’t say when Mr. Kim visited the facilities and where they are located.

KCNA said Mr. Kim stressed the need to further augment the number of centrifuges to “exponentially increase the nuclear weapons for self-defense,” a goal he has repeatedly stated in recent years. It said Mr. Kim ordered officials to push forward the introduction of a new-type centrifuge, which has reached its completion stage.

Mr. Kim said North Korea needs greater defence and preemptive attack capabilities because “anti-(North Korea) nuclear threats perpetrated by the U.S. imperialists-led vassal forces have become more undisguised and crossed the red-line,” KCNA said.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it strongly condemned North Korea’s unveiling of a uranium-enrichment facility and Mr. Kim’s vows to boost his country’s nuclear capability. A Ministry statement said North Korea’s “illegal” pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of U.N. bans is a serious threat to international peace. It said North Korea must realise it cannot win anything with its nuclear programme.

North Korea first showed a uranium enrichment site in Yongbyon to the outside world in November 2010, when it allowed a visiting delegation of Stanford University scholars led by nuclear physicist, Siegfried Hecker, to tour its centrifuges. North Korean officials then reportedly told Hecker that 2,000 centrifuges were already installed and running at Yongbyon.

Satellite images in recent years have indicated North Korea was expanding a uranium enrichment plant at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. Nuclear weapons can be built using either highly enriched uranium or plutonium and North Korea has facilities to produce both at Yongbyon. It’s not clear exactly how much weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium has been produced at Yongbyon and where North Korea stores it.

“For analysts outside the country, the released images will provide a valuable source of information for rectifying our assumptions about how much material North Korea may have amassed to date,” said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Overall, we should not assume that North Korea will be as constrained as it once was by fissile material limitations. This is especially true for highly enriched uranium, where North Korea is significantly less constrained in its ability to scale up than it is with plutonium,” Mr. Panda said.

In 2018, Hecker and Stanford University scholars estimated North Korea’s highly enriched uranium inventory was 250 to 500 kg (550 to 1,100 pounds), sufficient for 25 to 30 nuclear devices.

The North Korean photos released on Friday showed about 1,000 centrifuges. When operated year-round, they would be able to produce around 20 to 25 kg (44 to 55 pounds) of highly enriched uranium, which would be enough to create a single bomb, according to Yang UK, a security expert at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

The new-type centrifuge Mr. Kim wants to introduce is likely an advanced carbon fiber-based one that could allow North Korea to produce five to 10 times more highly enriched uranium than its existing ones, said Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute.

Some U.S. and South Korean experts speculate North Korea is covertly running at least one other uranium-enrichment plant. In 2018, a top South Korean official told Parliament that North Korea was estimated to have already manufactured up to 60 nuclear weapons. Estimates on how many nuclear bombs North Korea can add every year vary, ranging from six to as much as 18.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to North Korea on June 18 for a “friendly” visit, the Kremlin announced, as the West suspects Pyongyang of supplying Moscow with weapons for its Ukraine offensive.

The visit to the world’s most reclusive state comes as Mr. Putin seeks ammunition to continue his military campaign launched in February 2022, which has thrown Moscow into unprecedented global isolation.

It also comes nine months after Mr. Putin hosted North Korea’s Kim Jong Un on a rare foreign trip to the Russian Far East, where the pair lavished each other with praise.

“President Vladimir Putin on June 18-19 will go to the North Korean Democratic Republic on a friendly state visit,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Moscow said Mr. Putin will then travel to Vietnam.

Western countries, South Korea and Kyiv have accused Pyongyang of sending weapons to Moscow for use in Ukraine, in violation of UN sanctions on North Korea.

Washington and Seoul say Russia has in return provided Pyongyang with technical help for its satellite program and sent aid to the food-strapped state.

Mr. Putin has scaled down trips abroad since launching the Ukraine offensive, but has paid some high-profile visits to Moscow’s few key allies such as China.

Pyongyang rarely hosts foreign guests, isolated diplomatically and having shut itself off even more since the COVID pandemic.

Russia and North Korea, which share a small land border, have historic links since the Soviet Union helped found the tiny state after the Korean War in the 1950s.

Since the fall of the USSR, Russia was one of the few countries to have working relations with Pyongyang.

‘Comrades-in-arms’

It will be Mr. Putin’s second visit to the country in his time in power, after a trip 24 years ago, shortly after becoming president, to meet Kim Jung Un’s father Kim Jong Il.

Back then, Mr. Putin was a frequent traveller, regularly touring the United States and Europe.

Now Russia finds itself under heavy international sanctions and the Kremlin leader is a persona non grata in most of the Western world, officially wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Mr. Kim said last week that ties with Russia had “developed into an unbreakable relationship of comrades-in-arms”.

When the leaders saw each other in September, Mr. Putin said he saw “possibilities” for military cooperation with North Korea, while Kim wished the Kremlin chief “victory” in Ukraine.

They symbolically gifted each other rifles and the Kremlin promised that Putin would visit in turn.

A string of Russian officials, including Moscow’s spy chief, have since visited North Korea in preparation for the visit.

In March, Russia also used its UN Security Council veto to effectively end UN monitoring of North Korean sanctions violations, a move seen as a victory for Pyongyang.

Both Russia and North Korea have denied that Pyongyang’s weapons are being used in Ukraine.

Mr. Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jon, accused Seoul and Washington last month of “misleading public opinion” on the issue.

North Korean shells

Ukraine, however, has reported finding North Korean shells on the battlefield.

In May, South Korea said its northern rival fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles, with some experts saying they could be tests for weapons destined for use against Ukraine.

As the Kremlin and Pyongyang have publicly deepened their ties, Moscow’s relationship with South Korea — a Ukraine backer — has been hugely strained.

Seoul is a major weapons exporter to Kyiv. Its President Yoon Suk Yeol last month promised to maintain its support in a phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

South Korea last month announced separate sanctions on Russian and North Korean individuals and companies allegedly trading military supplies.

For its part, Russia earlier this year detained a South Korean man, Baek Won-soon, on spy charges. He is believed to be the first South Korean detained on espionage charges in Russia for decades.

According to media reports, he may have been a missionary helping North Korean workers in Russia escape the country.