North Korea accelerates nuclear weapons production and builds new uranium enrichment plant

North Korea has made “very serious” progress in its capacity to produce nuclear weapons, has added a new uranium enrichment facility and has intensified activity at a key complex. These have been the main conclusions shared this Wednesday by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Organization, Rafael Grossifrom Seoul.

The agency has apparently detected an increase in activity at a five-megawatt reactor in the nuclear complex of Yongbyong and the commissioning of a new building with similarities to an enrichment facility at Kangson, another key nuclear site near the capital, Pyongyang, reports Reuters.

Uranium enrichment may provide an alternative, and experts say a more effective, route to acquiring nuclear weapons-grade material, in addition to plutonium reprocessing spent extracted from a nuclear reactor.

According to Grossi, North Korea’s nuclear program, about which there is no official data, has a few dozen nuclear warheadsbut there could be more. “All this points to a very serious increase in the DPRK’s capabilities in the field of nuclear weapons production,” he noted.

In this sense, satellite images from April support the IAEA’s assessment, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in the United States. According to a report from this center, the images indicated the completion of an alleged uranium enrichment plant capable of producing material suitable for the manufacture of weapons.

On Wednesday, Grossi said the agency had not seen any evidence that using Russian technology in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. References in the cooperation pact the two countries signed last year appeared to be limited to civilian nuclear projects, although it was too early to draw definitive conclusions, he added.

“Moving towards nuclear weapons would never provide greater security to any country,” said Grossi, who, on the contrary, has warned that it could trigger the proliferation of atomic weapons at a moment’s notice. of great geopolitical instability.