For the first time, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, was pictured viewing the country’s uranium enrichment facility on Friday, the same day he demanded the addition of more centrifuges to increase the country’s 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 on its uranium enrichment facilities available to the public.
These facilities spin the initial material in centrifuges at high speeds to produce highly enriched uranium, which is required to make nuclear bombs.
Kim toured the Nuclear Weapons Institute and the “production base of weapon-grade nuclear materials,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported, without giving the location of the facility or the date of the visit.
Kim “stressed the need to further augment the number of centrifuges in order to exponentially increase the nuclear weapons for self-defence,” state media reported, publishing images of Kim inspecting rows of centrifuges.
Kim “acquainted himself with the production of nuclear warheads and current nuclear materials,” the report said.
“Dynamically producing nuclear materials by studying, developing and introducing all the system elements including centrifugal separators,” according to KCNA, was the information presented to the North Korean leader.
Kim asked the plant to “push forward the introduction of a new-type centrifuge… so as to further strengthen the foundation for producing weapon-grade nuclear materials” .
Additionally, Kim “stressed the need to set a higher long-term goal in producing nuclear materials necessary” , according to KCNA.
UN sanctions prohibit North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, but the nation has long disregarded the prohibitions, in part because of help from allies China and Russia.
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