North Korea has released the first-ever photos of a uranium enrichment facility, showing leader Kim Jong Un touring it as he called for more centrifuges to boost his country’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
Pyongyang, which is facing a slew of United Nations sanctions for pursuing its banned weapons programmes, has previously never publicly disclosed details of its uranium enrichment facility since its first nuclear test in 2006.
Kim toured the Nuclear Weapons Institute and the “production base of weapon-grade nuclear materials,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday.
The photos showed Kim walking between long rows of metal centrifuges but it did not say when he visited the location.
Such facilities produce highly enriched uranium, which is needed to manufacture nuclear warheads, by spinning the material in centrifuges at high speeds.
It was unclear where the facility is located, but North Korea is believed to operate multiple uranium enrichment facilities, including one at its Yongbyon nuclear site.
During the visit, KCNA reported that the North Korean leader “stressed the need to further augment the number of centrifuges in order to exponentially increase the nuclear weapons for self-defence”.
Reporting from the South Korean capital, Seoul, Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride said this was the first time that Pyongyang revealed in such detail the “inner workings of its uranium enrichment facility”.
“This comes as North Korea continues its active development of its nuclear arms capabilities in spite of the international sanctions as well as objections from South Korea.”
The images show “how advanced their enrichment capability has become, which gives greater credibility to both their ability and commitment to increasing their nuclear weapons arsenals”, Jenny Town, a North Korea expert and fellow at the United States-based Stimson Center think tank, told the Reuters news agency.
South Korea slammed the North over the uranium enrichment facility as “a clear violation of a number of UN Security Council resolutions”.
“Any nuclear threat or provocation by North Korea will be met with an overwhelming and strong response from our government and military, based on the solid extended deterrence of the South Korea-US alliance,” the Ministry of Unification said in a statement published by Yonhap news agency.
Al Jazeera’s McBride said photos were also released of Kim witnessing a missile test and training of North Korean special forces apparently held on Thursday.
Experts said the sudden public disclosure of the uranium enrichment facility could be intended to affect the US presidential election in November.
The images are “a message to the next administration that it will be impossible to denuclearise North Korea”, Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told the AFP news agency.
“It is also a message demanding other countries to acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear state,” he added.
While the UN Security Council has passed multiple resolutions banning North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development, its allies Russia and China have blocked new sanctions and called for existing ones to be rolled back.
