SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has visited a uranium enrichment facility and called for new centrifuges to produce more weapons-grade material, state media said. KCNA reported on Friday.
The report on Kim's visit to the Nuclear Weapons Institute and a production base for weapons-grade nuclear materials was accompanied by photographs offering a rare glimpse inside North Korea's nuclear program, which is banned by multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The photos show Kim walking among long rows of metal centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium. The report does not clarify when the visit took place or the location of the facilities.
Kim urged workers to produce more materials for tactical nuclear weapons, saying the country's nuclear arsenal is vital to confronting threats from the United States and its allies.
The weapons are needed for “self-defense and the ability to strike preemptively,” he said.
The North Korean leader said that “nuclear threats against the DPRK” by “vassal forces led by the US imperialists” have crossed the red line, the report said.
North Korea is believed to have several uranium enrichment sites. Analysts say commercial satellite images have shown construction in recent years at the main Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, including its uranium enrichment plant, suggesting possible expansion.
Uranium is a naturally occurring radioactive element. To make nuclear fuel, raw uranium is subjected to processes that result in a material with a higher concentration of the uranium-235 isotope.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said on Monday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog had observed activity consistent with the operation of a reactor and the suspected centrifuge enrichment facility at Yongbyon.
Kim stressed the need to increase the number of centrifuges to “exponentially increase” nuclear weapons and expand the use of a new type of centrifuges to further strengthen the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials.
The new type of centrifuge shows North Korea is improving its fuel cycle capabilities, said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Kim also appears to suggest that North Korea's tactical nuclear weapons designs may rely primarily on uranium for their cores,” he said.
This is notable because North Korea has greater capacity to increase its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Panda said, compared with the more complicated process for plutonium.
Estimates of North Korea’s number of nuclear weapons vary widely. In July, a report by the Federation of American Scientists concluded that the country may have produced enough fissile material to build up to 90 nuclear warheads, but that it has probably gathered closer to 50.
Kim also supervised the test-firing of a new 600mm multiple launch rocket system on Thursday and inspected the training base of the North Korean military's special operations force to guide a fighter drill held on Wednesday, according to separate KCNA reports.
In a statement carried by KCNA, the spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry's institute criticized a recent defense ministerial meeting among member states of the U.S.-led United Nations Command in Seoul, calling it a “war organization.”
Germany joined the command last month, becoming the 18th nation in a group that helps guard the heavily fortified border with North Korea and has pledged to defend the South in the event of war.
