Kim shows off his uranium centrifuges for the first time

North Korea’s official media published images of a uranium enrichment plant for the first time on Friday.on the occasion of a visit by ruler Kim Jong-un to the National Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, at an undisclosed location.

It is the first time North Korea has provided details of its uranium enrichment facilities since the country conducted its first nuclear test in 2006.

These plants produce the enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons by spinning the element at high speed in centrifuges.

According to official media, Kim called for building more centrifuges to increase the country’s atomic arsenal.

Images released by the KCNA propaganda agency show Kim visiting a plant – the date and location of the facility were not specified – in the company of Hong Sung-mu, a leading figure in North Korea’s nuclear programme, and touring a room in which a cascade of gas centrifuges can be seen.

During the visit, Kim “stressed the need to further increase the number of centrifuges to exponentially increase the number of nuclear weapons for self-defense in line with the Party’s line on developing nuclear forces,” KCNA said.

Kim, who visited the facility’s control room and was briefed on its operation, “expressed great satisfaction at being informed that the current production of nuclear material (for bombs) is expanding steadily” thanks to the use and development of North Korean technology.

The leader ordered to further improve the separation capacity of centrifuges and to push for the introduction of a new type of centrifuge, the development of which is in its final stages, according to KCNA.

Insists on security threats

Kim Jong-un, who also visited the ships under construction to house more centrifugesinsisted again that the current security situation for his country represents a “threat” and that this requires improving nuclear capabilities in defensive terms and to launch preventive attacks.

Until now, the North Korean regime had never publicly shown any of its facilities for obtaining uranium-235, although it had allowed figures such as the American scientist Siegfried Hecker to visit at the beginning of the last decade a facility at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center (about 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang) containing some 2,000 gas centrifuges.

Continue reading:

• What is songbun, the social model in North Korea that determines the lives of citizens
• Pyongyang fires missiles into the sea during Blinken’s visit to South Korea
• Kim Jong-un and his daughter oversee military exercises in preparation for war