North Korea released images of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time on Friday, showing leader Kim Jong Un touring it as he called for more centrifuges to boost his nuclear arsenal.
The images are “a message to the next administration that it will be impossible to denuclearise North Korea”, Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.
“It is also a message demanding other countries to acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear state,” he added.
It is unlikely that the disclosure will be quickly followed by another nuclear test, he said.
38 North, a North Korean analysis programme run by the Stimson Centre think-tank, reported on Wednesday that North Korea’s main nuclear test site had been damaged by floodwaters.
Friday saw the first public release of photos from North Korea’s uranium enrichment plant, which featured leader Kim Jong Un touring the facility while urging the country to add more centrifuges to increase the size of its nuclear arsenal.
The nation, which carried out its first nuclear test in 2006 and is facing numerous UN sanctions due to its prohibited weapons programs, has never made information about its uranium enrichment facility available to the public.
By rapidly centrifuging the original material, these facilities create highly enriched uranium, which is required to make nuclear warheads.
Unspecified about the location or date of the visit, the official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim had visited the Nuclear Weapons Institute and the “production base of weapon-grade nuclear materials.”.
Kim inspected rows of centrifuges and “stressed the need to further augment the number of centrifuges in order to exponentially increase the nuclear weapons for self-defence,” state media published images of Kim saying.
The report stated that Kim “acquainted himself with the production of nuclear warheads and current nuclear materials.”.
According to KCNA, the North Korean leader was given an overview of the facility that “dynamically produces nuclear materials by studying, developing and introducing all the system elements including centrifugal separators.”.
“Push forward the introduction of a new-type centrifuge,” Kim urged the facility to do. to further fortify the basis for the production of nuclear materials suitable for use as weapons”.
According to KCNA, Kim also “emphasized the need to set a higher long-term goal in producing nuclear materials necessary.”.
Although North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs are prohibited by UN sanctions, the nation has long disregarded the prohibitions, in part because of assistance from allies China and Russia.
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Analysts speculated that the abrupt revelation of the North Korean uranium enrichment plant may have been done to influence the US presidential election in November.
According to Hong Min, senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, the pictures are “a message to the next administration that it will be impossible to denuclearise North Korea,” as reported by AFP.
He continued, “It is also a message demanding that other nations recognize North Korea as a nuclear state.”.
He said it is unlikely that another nuclear test will happen soon after the disclosure.
Pyongyang said last month that a record-breaking amount of rain fell in late July, flooding homes and submerging large areas of farmland in its northern areas close to China, killing an unknown number of people.
On Wednesday, the Stimson Center think-tank’s 38 North program, which analyzes North Korea, revealed that floodwaters had caused damage to the country’s primary nuclear testing facility.
The primary nuclear test site in North Korea “is in extremely poor condition. Rain damage has destroyed all roads and railroads, and the ground is extremely weakened,” Hong continued.
With the North recently announcing the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border, relations between North and South Korea are at an all-time low.
Additionally, the North has been pelting the South with balloons that carry garbage; this most recent blitz lasted five days in a row.
Multiple short-range ballistic missile launches by the North into waters east of the Korean peninsula were reported by Seoul on Thursday.
However, KCNA said in a different report on Friday that Kim was in charge of this test, which involved a “new-type 600mm multiple rocket launcher.”.
(AFP).
