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Leadership - Nuclear Weapons

The Nuclear Weapons Research Institute is a nuclear warhead development agency, affiliated to the Ministry of Military Supplies Industry of the Workers’ Party of Korea, nicknamed "83 Research Institute."

The two key figures in the promotion of North Korea’s nuclear development under the Kim Jong Un regime are Hong Seung-mo, the vice minister of the Ministry of Supplies and Industries of the Labor Party, who has been on the sanctions list of the United States and South Korea, and Lee Hong-seop, the director of the Nuclear Weapons Institute. They were placed on the left and right of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to be responsible for the explanation in the photos of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the hydrogen bomb on Sunday.

The outside world does not know much about Hong Chengwu. In September 2010, at the party representative meeting where Kim Jong-un was appointed heir, his name appeared in the North Korean media for the first time as an alternate member of the Party Central Committee.

Although Hong Chengwu was rarely reported in the official media, he mostly attended with the most senior officials when he appeared, including two days after North Korea launched the "Galaxy 3" rocket on December 12, 2012, he accompanied Kim Jong-un to the space center Zhu Jie, and the following year for the rocket. The launch achievement was awarded the Kim Il Sung Medal. He was ranked at the meeting that decided the third nuclear test in February 2013, and was also at the forefront of occasions when he praised the command of the front. He was promoted to a member of the Central Committee in 2016.

The director of the Institute of Nuclear Weapons, Li Hongxie, was the director of the Yongbyon Institute of Atomic Energy and an advisor to the General Administration of Atomic Energy. He also became an alternate member of the Party Central Committee in September 2010 and was promoted to a member of the Party Central Committee in May 2016.

Hong and Li were listed as targets of sanctions designated by the United Nations in June 2013 and July 2009 respectively, and were also on the sanctions lists of the United States, South Korea, and Britain.