S. Korea: North has plutonium for 10 bombs
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NORTH Korea now has enough plutonium to make 10 nuclear bombs, South Korea said yesterday, a week after leader Kim Jong Un said it was close to test-launching an intercontinental ballistic missile.
North Korea, which has carried out five nuclear tests and numerous missile launches, is thought to be planning a nuclear push in 2017 as it seeks to develop a weapons system capable of hitting the US mainland.
Analysts are divided over how close Pyongyang is to realizing its full nuclear ambitions, but all agree it has made enormous strides since Kim took over as leader from his father Kim Jong Il who died in December 2011.
Seoul’s defense ministry said North Korea is believed to have some 50 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium as of the end of 2016 — enough to make about 10 weapons — up from 40kg eight years earlier.
North Korea also has a “considerable” ability to produce weapons based on highly-enriched uranium, it said in a two-yearly white paper, but did not estimate weapons-grade uranium stocks, citing impenetrable secrecy in the state’s uranium program.
US think tank the Institute for Science and International Security estimated in June that North Korea’s total nuclear arsenal was more than 21 bombs, up from 10-16 weapons in 2014, based on estimates of plutonium and uranium.
North Korea has boosted plutonium supplies by reactivating its once-mothballed nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, the South Korean defense ministry said.
North Korea deactivated the Yongbyon reactor in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament accord, but began renovating it after its third nuclear test in 2013.
The type of plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb typically needs to be extracted from spent nuclear reactor fuel.
Kim Jong Un said in a New Year’s speech that Pyongyang was in the “final stages” of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile of the kind that could threaten the United States. That drew a swift reply from US president-elect Donald Trump, who took to Twitter vowing to halt Pyongyang in its tracks.
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