North Korean leader Kim Jong-un tours a nuclear material production factory on June 3, 2026. (KCNA/Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new highly enriched uranium plant, underscoring his intent to expand his country’s nuclear capabilities. Ahead of Friday’s announcement that Chinese President Xi Jinping would be visiting North Korea next week, Kim’s move was seen as a diplomatic message to cement the North’s status as a nuclear power by ruling out denuclearization.The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday said Kim reiterated his drive to strengthen Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities while giving guidance at a newly operational nuclear materials plant the previous day. “Saying that the weapons-grade nuclear materials production capacity more than doubled as compared to the previous one during the past five-year course of bolstering up the nuclear forces under the direct guidance of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK [Workers Party of Korea],” the KCNA said. The state media also said that Kim recalled that the party congress earlier this year had decided on “a new five-year plan for the strengthened nuclear force to steadily enhance the country's nuclear war deterrent.”Kim that day also held an “important consultative meeting” on reinforcing North Korea’s nuclear forces. He pledged to “beef up our state’s nuclear forces at an exponential rate,” saying the North’s “invariable political and military stand” is to “thoroughly exercise the position of a nuclear weapons state.”The KCNA also released photos of densely packed uranium enrichment centrifuges, a control room and piping.To date, three locations have been identified as the likely sites of the North’s uranium enrichment facilities: Yongbyon and Kusong in North Pyongan Province and Kangson in the city of Nampo. Experts said the plant that Kim visited is highly likely to be a new facility in Yongbyon.Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, cited an International Atomic Energy Agency analysis that a uranium enrichment facility in Yongbyon whose construction was launched in 2024 was recently completed.“It appears more likely that North Korea started operations at the newly built uranium enrichment facility within the Yongbyon complex rather than at a fourth location other than the three previously known,” he said.Experts said Kim’s display of new nuclear facilities and mass production capabilities for nuclear weapons was a clear message to the world that the North’s denuclearization is no longer up for negotiation, noting the conspicuous timing of the reveal.This is the third time for Pyongyang to publicly report Kim’s visit to such a facility, following those in September 2024 and January last year.“The first announcement in 2024 came around 50 days before the US presidential election, and the second in January 2025 was timed to coincide with the inauguration of the second Trump administration,” Hong said. “This time, it followed last month’s Sino-US summit and the joint statement from the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting,” he added. “This is interpreted as an attempt to make the impossibility of denuclearization an established fact in response to the confirmation of the goal of North Korea’s denuclearization by US and Chinese leaders and Quad foreign ministers.”The Quad is a four-country security consultative body comprising the US, Japan, Australia and India. Its foreign ministers in a joint statement last month explicitly mentioned “commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea,” something that the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs called an interference with its “legitimate exercise of sovereign rights.”When the US mentioned the goal of the North’s denuclearization, Kim reportedly sought to send a clear message that denuclearization is absolutely out of the question even if Pyongyang resumed dialogue with Washington. This could also be considered a preemptive step to shift the focus from denuclearization to arms control negotiations in preparation for the resumption of talks with US President Donald Trump.With Xi set to visit North Korea on Monday and Tuesday, another interpretation is that Kim’s move was made with China in mind. Speculation is that Kim is trying to preemptively block denuclearization from being placed on the agenda at his bilateral summit with China by showcasing Pyongyang’s nuclear capacity ahead of Xi’s visit.“If President Xi Jinping visits North Korea at this time, the intent would be to clearly convey the message that ‘China is the manager of the situation on the Korean Peninsula,’” said Chang Yong-seok, a visiting scholar at Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies. “But Chairman Kim Jong-un’s message to President Xi will be don’t bring up denuclearization or think about military or diplomatic interference.”South Korea’s government responded to these moves by Kim by stating that North Korea’s nuclear activities “are a clear violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and a challenge to international peace and security as well as the global nonproliferation regime.”According to a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seoul plans to “continue devoting efforts to making tangible progress toward a resolution of the North Korean nuclear problem in close concert with international society while maintaining the objective of the total denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”Park Min-hee, senior staff writerPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
