OMM Redaksiyası
North Korea has built a new uranium enrichment facility at the Yongbyon nuclear complex in the country’s northwest and brought an expanded facility into operation in the Kanson area near the capital, Pyongyang.
A report released on Aug. 28 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, said a newly identified two-story building at Yongbyon was the complex’s second uranium enrichment facility.
The IAEA reached this conclusion after comparing images broadcast by state media during North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit to the site in June with satellite images taken during the construction phase. The images showed gas centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium installed on both floors of the building.
According to the agency’s estimates, the building could accommodate up to 28 cascades of the type of centrifuges visible in the images. A separate enrichment facility in Kanson is believed to have become operational in January, the report said. Satellite imagery indicated that the facility is located in an additional building completed in 2024.
The IAEA said that, because international inspectors have not been allowed into North Korea since 2009, it has had to monitor the country’s nuclear activities using satellite imagery and open sources, including photographs released by North Korean state media.
According to the agency, the latest findings amount to violations of UN Security Council resolutions banning North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told the agency’s Board of Governors in Vienna that the continued operation of the two enrichment facilities and an increase in the volume of materials used in weapons production were “a matter of serious concern.”
North Korea has consistently rejected IAEA monitoring. The country’s mission to the UN in Vienna said last September that North Korea’s status as a nuclear-weapon state was irreversible and rejected the agency’s authority to investigate its program.
North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2003 and has conducted six nuclear tests since 2006. Its most recent test took place in 2017.
Estimates of the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal vary. South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-baek told parliament in August that Pyongyang was believed to possess approximately 80 to 120 nuclear warheads, while emphasizing that determining the exact figure was difficult.
US President Donald Trump told reporters that month that he believed North Korea possessed 57 nuclear weapons. Activity has also been observed in satellite imagery at North Korea’s underground Punggye-ri nuclear test site. This has raised concerns among Western officials that Pyongyang may be preparing for a seventh nuclear test.
