North Korea Reveals Uranium-Enrichment Facility

October 2024
By Kelsey Davenport

North Korea revealed a uranium-enrichment facility and a new, larger launch vehicle for long-range missiles as leader Kim Jong Un pledged to expand the country’s nuclear arsenal.

In a Sept. 10 speech marking the country’s founding, Kim said that North Korea will “steadily bolster its nuclear force” to effectively respond to “any acts of threat imposed by nuclear-armed rivals.” He also repeated past calls for an exponential increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Several days after the speech, Kim visited the state’s Nuclear Weapons Institute. North Korean media released images of him walking through an unnamed facility filled with centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium.

North Korea frequently displays pictures of its missiles and occasionally shares photos of warheads, but it generally has guarded the secrecy of its uranium-enrichment program. The photographs, published Sept. 13, did not disclose the location of the centrifuges.

North Korea is known to have a uranium-enrichment facility at Yongbyon, the nuclear complex where the country’s plutonium-producing reactor is located, and is suspected of operating additional centrifuges at unknown sites. A team of experts, including Jeffery Lewis from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, identified Kangson as one of the uranium-enrichment facilities in 2018. In a Sept. 13 post on the social platform X, Lewis pointed out features from the photos that are consistent with satellite images of Kangson.

According to the Sept. 13 report on Kim’s visit from the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim “set forth important tasks concerning a long-term plan for increasing the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials.” He said it is necessary for North Korea to “further increase the number of centrifuges” and enhance the efficiency of the machines. He said North Korea is ready to move forward with a new type of centrifuge.

Siegfried Hecker, a U.S. nuclear physicist and former head of Los Alamos National Laboratory, visited North Korea’s centrifuge facility at Yongbyon in 2010. The centrifuges shown in the Sept. 13 images are a different model than the machines Hecker observed on his trip. It is not clear from the photos how many of the centrifuges depicted are operational. Some machines are not connected yet, suggesting that North Korea is expanding its capacity.

According to KCNA, Kim noted the importance of producing fissile material for “the manufacture of tactical nuclear weapons.”

North Korea does not disclose the size of its nuclear arsenal, and uncertainty over its production capabilities makes it difficult to assess the number of warheads that the country possesses. In a July report, experts at the Federation of American Scientists estimated that North Korea has produced enough weapons-grade material for about 90 weapons but may have assembled only about 50 warheads.

Kim justified the expansion by saying U.S. threats and the regional security environment make it necessary for North Korea to “bolster up its military capability for self-defense” and for “preemptive attack with the nuclear force as the backbone.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a Sept. 13 press briefing that the images of North Korea’s centrifuges do not change U.S. policy. The United States “will defend our South Korean and Japanese allies, and we’ll continue to work for the full denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” he said.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that the United States continues to monitor North Korea’s “progression in their nuclear ambitions as well as their ballistic missile technology and program.”

He said that monitoring North Korea’s advances is one reason why the Biden administration devoted more “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, prioritizing those for the area on and around the Korean peninsula.”

North Korea also published a photo of Kim inspecting a transport erector launch vehicle that appears larger than vehicles the country has used in the past for its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The photo, published Sept. 8, shows a 12-axle launch vehicle, which suggests that North Korea may be working on a larger, more powerful ICBM. North Korea launches the Hwasong-17, its largest known ICBM, using an 11-axle launch vehicle.

In a Sept. 11 joint statement, the defense ministers of the participating states of the UN Command and South Korea strongly condemned North Korea’s illegal nuclear and missile programs, which “seriously undermine international non-proliferation regimes.”

The UN Command, which is comprised of the states that fought against North Korea in the Korean War, welcomed Germany as a new member, bringing the number of participating states to 18.

The defense ministers said they would “remain united upon the renewal of hostilities or armed attack on the Korean peninsula.” They pledged to “reinforce combined exercises and training” in response to security threats and explore options for strengthening the UN Command.

North Korea responded to the meeting by accusing the United States of “buckling down” to draw additional states into its aggressive military drills.

In a Sept. 13 statement published in KCNA, the Disarmament and Peace Institute within the North Korean Foreign Ministry said the UN Command meeting is aimed at revitalizing a “tool for war and confrontation.” It accused the UN Command states of “further increasing the possibility of military conflict.”

The “collective military confrontation” against North Korea will motivate Pyongyang to accelerate the formation of a “just strategic axis” to correct the imbalance of power in the region, the statement said.

The institute did not define the “strategic axis,” but it may have been referring to North Korea’s growing partnership with Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim signed a treaty during Putin’s visit to North Korea in June that included pledges to strengthen military cooperation and provide assistance in response to an armed invasion. (See ACT, July/August 2024.)

The UN Command joint statement “expressed serious concern” over the growing partnership between North Korea and Russia.