North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has ordered workers at a brand-new nuclear production facility to accelerate the manufacture of fresh atomic weapons in order to bolster the country’s ever-growing arsenal.
Kim, accompanied by senior officials from the Ministry of Munitions Industry of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, was photographed inspecting production lines, reviewing projects with top brass, and engaging with workers as they advanced the nation’s latest developments in nuclear technology.
The North Korean leader told those assembled at the plant that the production capacity of weapons-grade nuclear material has now surpassed twice its previous output, thanks to efforts made over the past five years, and urged workers to push their productivity even further.
According to the Northern newspaper Rodong Sinmun, Kim also unveiled a plan to “exponentially strengthen the national nuclear force,” declaring that the country’s current nuclear capability was built upon a “noble path of struggle” undertaken by North Korean scientists over the past five years.
Ramping up the expansion of its weapons stockpile would serve as a war deterrent, Kim stated, describing it as a “fundamental guarantee and powerful safeguard that reliably ensures the country’s security, interests, and right to development.”
He further declared that this build-up was an essential stance for managing a prolonged confrontation against “the most vicious adversaries”, in a chilling warning directed at the West.
Kim’s visit to the newly operational nuclear facility comes just weeks after North Korea launched a mysterious projectile into the sea during its most recent weapons test, ordered by the Supreme Leader himself.
South Korean military officials confirmed the unidentified projectile was fired from the peninsula’s west coast on Tuesday, marking the North’s latest weapons test this year.
Reports indicated the projectile travelled an estimated distance of 49 miles before plunging into the Yellow Sea on May 26.
This followed yet another launch by the North on April 19, in which multiple short-range missiles were fired in what state media portrayed as a demonstration of cluster bomb warheads.