N Korea has even more plutonium for nuclear weapons than we feared

NORTH Korea has produced more plutonium for its weapons programme than previously thought, according to a new report.

Thermal images of the communist country’s main nuclear facility appear to show it has reprocessed spent fuel rods at least twice between last September and June this year.

It means the rogue nation may have even more nuclear material for its atomic stockpile than feared.

The 38 North website, a monitoring project linked to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, said it reached the conclusions after analysing the thermal imagery. ‘The radiochemical laboratory operated intermittently and there have apparently been at least two unreported reprocessing campaigns to produce an undetermined amount of plutonium that can further increase North Korea’s nuclear weapons stockpile,’ it said.

North Korea deactivated the Yongbyon reactor in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament accord, but began renovating it after Pyongyang’s third nuclear test in 2013.

Under former leader Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011, and his son Kim Jong Un, the country has conducted five underground nuclear tests since 2006.

It carried out its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile last week.

North Korea’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday ‘the resounding success’ of the most recent test demonstrated Pyongyang’s ability to ‘annihilate the US by a single blow to the very heart of its mainland in case it fails to act with discretion’. The US was inviting its ‘ultimate doom’ by pushing for ramped up UN sanctions against the North, a government spokesman said on Pyongyang state media.

North Korea, which says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against the threat of invasion, is subject to multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its weapons programmes. The latest launch triggered a new round of condemnation, with the US and its allies seeking tougher UN measures.