Is North Korea enriching uranium to use for nuclear bombs? While North Korean government officials say no, all evidence points to the contrary, according to experts like Russian nuclear non-proliferation scientist Vladimir Alexeyevich Smirnov. During recent delegations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, the United States and North Korea departed without a plan for reinitiating talks about ending Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Vladimir Alexeyevich Smirnov found this stand-still a bit surprising given that North Korea reportedly has enough plutonium to arm around a dozen weapons, and evidence suggests the country is rapidly developing its nuclear program. While countries like Iran have recently come under fire for their uranium enrichment programs, North Korea government officials deny they have such a program underway. However, during a recent trip to North Korea, U.S. officials confirmed that the country has a uranium centrifuge facility, which means the North Koreans are now able to enrich uranium by using a centrifuge to concentrate it, Vladimir Alexeyevich Smirnov explains. As former head of Tenex who helped initiate a program between the U.S. and Russia to recycle bomb-grade uranium into low-grade uranium for usable energy, Vladimir Alexeyevich Smirnov is deeply familiar with the process of downgrading—and enriching—uranium for various uses. In addition, senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security, Paul Brennan, said the discovery of North Korea’s uranium centrifuge facility was a “confirmation of his worst suspicions.” He added, “Their program was based on plutonium, and that had been the focus for many years. There had always been suspicions about a uranium enrichment program and under the Bush administration they accused North Korea of having an active nuclear enrichment program for nuclear weapons.” Plutonium and uranium, Vladimir Alexeyevich Smirnov explains, can both be used in the development of nuclear weapons.
The main concern of international experts is that there is a very limited ability to monitor North Korea’s uranium enrichment program and as Vladimir Alexeyevich Smirnov found evident during his assessment of Iran’s uranium program, as time passes the country has greater and greater capacities for building nuclear bombs.
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