Nuclear Weapons Test - 2024
There were growing concerns in 2022 that North Korea, which had conducted an unprecedented number of missile launches this year, will soon test a nuclear weapon for the first time since 2017. At Punggye-ri, North Korea’s nuclear test site, there were indications that one of the passages known as adits had been reopened, possibly in preparation for a nuclear test. The site was dismantled in 2018 following a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said there would be a “forceful” response from the United States, South Korea and the world if North Korea were to conduct a nuclear test. “Any nuclear test would be in complete violation of UN Security Council resolutions [and] there would be a swift and forceful response to such a test,” Sherman told reporters on 07 June 2022 after talks with her South Korean counterpart, Cho Hyun-dong, in Seoul.
Special U.S. Representative for North Korea Sung Kim warned that Pyeongyang seems to have completed preparations for what will be its seventh nuclear test. Speaking during a telephone briefing on 07 June 2022, Kim also noted there is not a clear timetable for the possible test. He reiterated what other U.S. officials have already said acknowledging that the regime had completed preparations at its nuclear test site in Punggye-ri. Kim highlighted that Washington hopes that the regime will refrain from conducting such a provocation, which could lead to serious uncertainties in the region.
North Korea may conduct its seventh nuclear test after the U.S. presidential vote in November, said South Korean lawmakers on 26 September 2024, citing their country’s spy agency. “Since North Korea has other options for provocation such as an intercontinental ballistic missile test or launch of a satellite, its nuclear test would be after the U.S. election,” lawmakers Lee Seong-Kweun of the ruling People Power Party and Park Sun-won of the main opposition Democratic Party told parliament, citing the the National Intelligence Service, or NIS.
It would be North Korea’s first nuclear test since 2017. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. All six have been underground. The NIS also reported that the North possessed about 70 kilograms of plutonium and a significant amount of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons.
On the North’s disclosure of an HEU facility for the first time in September 2024, the NIS said Pyongyang appeared to have the U.S. election in mind, but it could be also trying to “instill confidence” in the domestic audience struggling with a crippled economy. North Korea unveiled details of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time this month, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for increasing the number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment so it can build up its nuclear arsenal for self-defense.
The North’s state media, in reporting on the facility, did not disclose where it is or say when Kim visited it. The NIS, however, said the facility that state media reported on was likely to be the Kangson nuclear complex near the capital, Pyongyang, though acknowledging it was hard to give a definite answer, according to the lawmakers.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
