South Korean intelligence services warned on Thursday about the scale of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. According to Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, Pyongyang is believed to possess up to 2,000 kilograms of uranium enriched to more than 90 percent purity, an amount sufficient to manufacture over 40 atomic bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supports this assessment, noting that just five to six kilograms of plutonium are enough to build a single nuclear weapon.
With the reported amount of uranium, the regime could produce “an enormous number of nuclear weapons.” Chung also stated that North Korea’s uranium centrifuges continue to operate actively at no fewer than four different facilities. This information reinforces what the international community has long suspected: that Pyongyang not only possesses nuclear weapons but is also expanding its program to strengthen its arsenal.
Although the regime rarely discloses the full scope of its stockpiles, experts agree that it holds “significant” amounts of highly enriched uranium, the essential material for manufacturing nuclear warheads. The South Korean minister stressed the urgency of halting this development and dismissed economic sanctions as ineffective. “In the case of North Korea, sanctions do not work.
The only real solution could be a summit between Pyongyang and the United States,” he said, referring to Seoul’s key security ally. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, meanwhile, recently expressed openness to renewed talks with Washington, though under specific conditions: that the U.S. abandon its demand for denuclearization. “If the United States abandons its delusional obsession with denuclearization and, in recognition of reality, truly desires peaceful coexistence with us, then there is no reason why we should not fulfill that wish,” Kim declared, as quoted by the state-run KCNA news agency.
However, conciliatory gestures stand in stark contrast with the regime’s official position. As recently as September, North Korea once again categorically rejected calls for denuclearization. Its mission to the United Nations reiterated that the country’s status as a nuclear power is “permanently” enshrined in the Constitution and has become “irreversible.” With this, Pyongyang confirms that it views its nuclear arsenal as a core element of both survival and deterrence.
North Korea’s nuclear program has a long history of confrontation with the international community. In 1994, the country withdrew from the IAEA following disputes over inspections at its facilities. In 2003, it announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in 2023 it escalated further by embedding its nuclear power status into the national Constitution. These moves consolidate a path with little chance of reversal and keep global security on edge.
