UNITED NATIONS –
UN experts report that North Korea is testing “nuclear trigger devices” and that its preparations for another nuclear test were in a final stage in June, citing information from unnamed countries.
The panel of experts said in new excerpts from its latest report obtained Friday by The Associated Press that it “has been unable to identify test locations and dates” for reported nuclear trigger device tests by a UN member state.
In excerpts obtained Thursday, experts said North Korea is paving the way for additional nuclear tests with new preparations at its northeastern test site and continuing to develop its ability to produce a key ingredient for nuclear weapons.
In the new excerpt, the panel said: “In early June, two member states assessed that preparation for nuclear tests was at a final stage.”
Elsewhere, the panel said in Thursday’s excerpts that North Korea carried out two major attacks this year, resulting in “hundreds of millions of dollars” worth of cryptocurrency assets being stolen. Pyongyang also continues to import oil and export coal illegally in violation of UN sanctions, using the same companies, networks and vessels, he said.
South Korean and US intelligence officials have said they have detected efforts by North Korea to prepare its northeastern Punggye-ri test range for another nuclear test. It would be North Korea’s seventh since 2006 and first since September 2017, when it claimed to have detonated a thermonuclear bomb to attach to its intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The report of the panel of experts to the UN Security Council provides some details of the work that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of the country, is carrying out on the site.
The experts said they noted that the DPRK started re-excavation work in March at the entrance of Tunnel 3 in Punggye-ri “and rebuilt the supporting buildings originally dismantled in May 2018.”
“Satellite imagery showed an increased number of vehicle tracks around this secondary entrance from mid-February 2022, followed by the construction of a new building adjacent to the entrance in early March,” the panel said. “A pile of wood, for possible use in the construction of the tunnel structure, was also detected at about the same time.”
He added that “during this period piles of earth from the tunnel excavation were observed around the entrance.”
“The work at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site paves the way for further nuclear tests for the development of nuclear weapons,” the experts said, adding that this is a goal set at the Eighth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party. of Korea from the country in January 2021.
Robert Floyd, head of the UN nuclear test ban treaty organization, told a UN press conference on Friday that his monitoring facilities detected the DPRK’s previous six nuclear tests. “If there is a seventh time, I am very confident that our system will detect it, we will characterize it, and that information will be shared with the states of the world,” he said.
Floyd attends the high-level conference reviewing the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that began Monday and runs through August 26. Under the provisions of the NPT, the original five nuclear powers: the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain, and France agreed to negotiate to one day eliminate their arsenals, and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire them in exchange for a guarantee of being able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Floyd raised the question of whether the possibility of a seventh DPRK nuclear test will strengthen or weaken non-proliferation and disarmament agreements, “and the appetite of states to see these things come to fruition.”
“I wonder how much that is really feeding into the tone that we heard this week during the review conference, where there was quite a bit of accommodation of various positions,” he said.
“I wonder if states are acknowledging at a time like this that it’s really important to be able to strengthen the NPT and come together around some of these very important issues, rather than, ‘Oh, this is one reason we have to drop something. as important as the cornerstone of the nuclear architecture,” Floyd said.
In another aspect of the DPRK’s nuclear program, analysts said satellite images from last September showed that North Korea was expanding a uranium enrichment plant at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, a sign it wanted to boost production of the key material for the pump.
The UN experts said in the new report: “The DPRK continued to develop its nuclear fissile material production capacity at the Yongbyon site.”
Nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea have stalled since 2019 over disagreements over the DPRK’s demand to lift crippling US-led sanctions and Washington’s demand that Pyongyang take significant steps toward nuclear disarmament.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expanded his ballistic missile program amid the diplomatic pause, and analysts say another nuclear test would intensify his brinkmanship aimed at cementing the North’s status as a nuclear power and negotiating economic and security concessions. from a position of strength.
The panel of experts said the DPRK continued to accelerate its missile programs, launching 31 missiles “combining ballistic and guidance technologies,” including six ICBMs and two “explicitly described as ballistic weapons.” He said that the DPRK also claimed to have made progress in its development of “tactical nuclear weapons.”