North Korea: Kim Jong Un visits newly inaugurated nuclear facility

Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a newly launched nuclear material production facility on Wednesday, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing the Korean Central News Agency.

As per the report by Yonhap, Kim Jong Un vowed to "exponentially" strengthen the country's nuclear arsenal, as he visited the facility accompanied by key party officials.

The location or other details, however, were not mentioned.

Presently, it is believed that North Korea houses uranium enrichment facilities at three locations--Yongbyon, Kusong and Kangson. It remains unclear whether there is a fourth location.

Citing the KCNA report, Yonhap mentioned that Kim claimed that the country's "weapons-grade nuclear material production capacity more than doubled" over the past five years, crediting the gains to the country's nuclear scientists.

"Potential threats and unpredictable long-term crises further highlight the urgency" of expanding the nuclear deterrent "both in quality and quantity and in a sustained and accelerated way," Kim said, thus signalling that Pyongyang has no intention of stepping back from its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea also said it held an "important consultative meeting for bolstering up the nuclear forces" at the facility, where Kim issued "the action guidelines for rapidly accelerating the qualitative and quantitative" buildup of Pyongyang's nuclear forces, it further reported.

"Today we have updated the digits that are critical for our nuclear activities," Kim said at the meeting, adding Pyongyang had "confirmed the order of priority" for a plan to "beef up our state's nuclear forces at an exponential rate."

As per Yonhap, he called it a "historic event that has set up an epochal milestone in rapidly upgrading our nuclear capabilities."

According to Yonhap, photos released by the KCNA showed rows of cylindrical centrifuges used for uranium enrichment inside the facility.

In another photo, documents believed to be related to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program are blurred on a table where Kim is seated.

Previously, at a key party congress in February, Pyongyang reaffirmed its status as an "irreversible" nuclear-armed state and vowed to further strengthen its nuclear deterrent under a five-year military modernisation plan.

The recent development comes after, in September 2024, North Korea disclosed its uranium enrichment facility for the first time and called for increasing the number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment.