NK unveils images of uranium enrichment facility for 1st time

Experts in Seoul suggest North Korea's nuclear facility disclosure aims to impact US election in Nov.

In this undated photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (center, rear) is seen inspecting an uranium enrichment facility. (KCNA-Yonhap)

North Korea made an unprecedented media disclosure of its uranium enrichment facility on Friday, with its leader Kim Jong-un inspecting rows of centrifuges in a clear display of the reclusive regime's nuclear ambitions.

According to North Korea's state media outlets, Kim had inspected a control room of a uranium enrichment facility, and expressed satisfaction, after he was briefed about the technology North Korea had developed for the facility's centrifugal separators, sensors and controllers.

There, the authoritarian leader called for a stronger foundation for the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials. Kim was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency that the facility needed to add more centrifuges, raise the individual separation ability of each centrifuge and devise a new type of centrifuge.

Kim was also quoted as saying that North Korea's sole ruling Workers' Party of Korea "set forth a new important strategy" with respect to building up the country's nuclear force.

Earlier in January 2023, the state-backed Korea Institute for Defense Analyses estimated that North Korea was to own up to 166 nuclear warheads by 2030, using either uranium or plutonium.

North Korea has not been recognized as a nuclear-weapon state, but it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and announced it had tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006.

A few hours after the release, the Ministry of Unification condemned Pyongyang that such a show of nuclear ambition "poses a threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula and the World."

"The government strongly condemns North Korea's disclosure of its uranium enrichment facility while speaking of strengthened nuclear capability and production of weapon-grade nuclear materials," said Koo Byung-sam, spokesman of the Unification Ministry.

"North Korea's nuclear weapons development is a clear violation of the multiple resolutions by the United Nations Security Council and poses a threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula and the world."

The government warned that South Korea and the international community will "never tolerate" North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons. Instead, Seoul urged Pyongyang to return to denuclearization talks for benefit the North Korean people's freedom, livelihood and peace.

"Any nuclear threat or provocation by North Korea will be met with the government's overwhelming and strong reactions based on the extended deterrence between South Korea and the United States as equal partners," Koo said.

The spokesman in Seoul said the facility Kim had visited could be either one in Yongbyon of North Pyongan Province, or the other in Kangson on the outskirts of North Korea's capital Pyongyang, adding the authorities were working to identify the exact location.

The official declined to comment on either Pyongyang's motivation behind the public disclosure of the facility, or its chances of carrying out its seventh nuclear test anytime soon.

North Korea's provocations is taking diverse shapes, with the US presidential election just two months away.

Some experts in Seoul said North Korea's disclosure of uranium enrichment facility appears to be intended to impact the US presidential election in November.

North Korea's surprise disclosure "is directed at Washington" in hopes of gaining recognition as a state with nuclear weapons and as "the US' counterpart of nuclear arms limitation talks," Park Won-gon, professor in the North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University, told The Korea Herald.

North Korea "is taking advantage of the situation" in which neither the Democrat nor the Republican candidate enshrined North Korea's denuclearization goal for their presidential election campaign, Park added.

But Park added that the North was unlikely to carry out a seventh nuclear test, which could backfire, with China expected to oppose the plan.

On Thursday, North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea from the Pyongyang area in its first missile provocation in two months. An official of the presidential office said on condition of anonymity it viewed the provocation as "not only a threat to us, but also a weapons test before exporting them to Russia."

In the meantime, North Korea chose to send a barrage of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea. North Korea flew over 1,000 balloons between last Wednesday and Sunday, while 20 more balloons were spotted Wednesday but failed to cross the border between the two Koreas.

A senior official of President Yoon Suk Yeol's office said on condition of anonymity that the intelligence authorities of South Korea and the United States are tracking any signs of the North's nuclear weapons test while keeping itself open to all possibilities.

The official said North Korea will take the US presidential election into account when determining the timing of the test.

By Son Ji-hyoung(consnow@heraldcorp.com)