In the months after US President Donald Trump and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un shook hands at Singapore in June of 2018, North Korea may have built up to 12 nuclear weapons, defence analysts say.
In a report published by the Wall Street Journal, satellite images of the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre show evidence that the DPRK has increased its production of plutonium and enriched uranium — elements crucial to making a weaponised nuclear bomb. The images show cylinders resembling liquid nitrogen containers left on truckbeds, with such cylinders a part of the enrichment process — later moved next to the centrifuge building.
The findings reflect poorly on the effects of the Trump administration to develop its North Korean strategy. On the ground, little has changed since talks between North Korea and the United States broke down in March of 2019, when Kim Jong-un's administration demanded an end to US sanctions — a request that was outright refused.
Since March, North Korea has grown more aggressive with its technology demonstrations, testing short-range missiles but stopping short of testing long-range weapons — in keeping with a stated self-imposed moratorium on the same that was announced in 2018.
In October 2018, South Korean lawmakers stated publically for the first time their estimate of how many warheads North Korea was estimated to have — a range of 20 to 60. Then, the South Korean government estimated that North Korea had produced up to 50 kilograms of weaponised plutonium, sufficient to produce eight bombs (reported by AP).
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Around the same time, a confidential UN report stated that North Korea "has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs and continued to defy Security Council resolutions through a massive increase in illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products, as well as through transfers of coal at sea during 2018."
North Korea's last nuclear test was in 2017, a hydrogen bomb test that was its most powerful yet. That same year, North Korea tested an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) named the Hwason-15 with a range of more than 13,000 km, proving that it had the ability to strike the United States.
Analysts say that along with Yongbyon, the DPRK also has centres in Sanum-Dong, Kangson and Hamhung that may be producing nuclear material.
Trump and Kim met briefly along the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) in June and declared that talks would re-open between the two sides. Relations remain fraught, however, with the North criticizing the US decision to carry out military drills with South Korea.
The report spells poorly for the prospect of denuclearisation in the Korean peninsula.