North Korea Unveils New Enrichment Facility

July/August 2026
By Kelsey Davenport

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a new uranium enrichment facility at an undisclosed location, which he described as necessary to bolster the country’s nuclear arsenal.

The state-run Rodong Sinmum published June 3 a report of Kim’s visit to a “newly commissioned nuclear material production plant” and showed a photo of him walking between rows of centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium, at the site.

The report said that Kim inspected the factory and reiterated the necessity of “implementing ambitious future plans designed to strengthen our state’s nuclear forces exponentially.” Kim expressed satisfaction with the facility and said that North Korea’s “weapons-grade nuclear materials production capacity more than doubled during the past 5-year” period.

North Korea announced plans to continue expanding its nuclear arsenal at the Ninth Party Congress, which took place in February. (See ACT, March 2026.)

After the visit, Kim held a “consultative meeting on bolstering the nuclear forces,” according to the report. At the conclusion of the meeting, Kim announced that North Korea “updated the digits that are critical for our nuclear activities.”

The updated number “comprehensively considered the tactical and strategic requirements for building up our nuclear deterrent,” the report said, suggesting that Kim set a new target for North Korea’s stockpile of nuclear warheads. Fissile material production capacity must continue to grow to increase the country’s nuclear arsenal, Kim was quoted as saying.

North Korea does not disclose the size of its nuclear arsenal, but a March 2026 report from the Federation of American Scientists estimated that North Korea possesses about 60 nuclear warheads.

Rodong Sinmum and other state-run media did not disclose the location of the facility, but it is likely within the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been tracking the construction of a building at the site that is similar in size and design to two other known uranium enrichment facilities in North Korea. Satellite imagery indicates that North Korea began construction on the building in December 2024.

In a June 8 statement to the agency’s Board of Governors, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi referenced North Korea’s reports on the new enrichment facility and said that the “interior structure and layout of the facility is consistent with the Agency’s observation of the features of the new building at Yongbyon.”

He said that the “ongoing operation of enrichment facilities at Kangson and Yongbyon and the reported further expansion of [North Korea’s] production of weapons-grade nuclear material is a cause for serious concern.”

The June 3 report from Rodong Sinmum suggested that the centrifuges at the newly unveiled facility will enrich uranium more efficiently because the new site features “more sophisticated technologies.”

In addition to the expanding uranium enrichment capacity, Grossi noted that it appears that North Korea is continuing to operate the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon. North Korea uses plutonium separated from the spent fuel produced by that reactor for nuclear weapons.

In a June 10 statement to the IAEA Board of Governors, Howard Solomon, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. mission to international organizations in Vienna, said that the United States is “gravely concerned by [North Korea’s] ongoing nuclear activities” and described reports on the new enrichment facility as “deeply troubling.” The United States remains committed to the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea, he said.

North Korea continues to reject denuclearization and reaffirm its status as a nuclear-armed state. In a June 13 statement, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that the United States and South Korea are “accelerating arms buildup” in the region and reiterated that its nuclear arsenal is an “irreversibly finalized matter.”

The statement was issued after the United States and South Korea held the sixth meeting of the Nuclear Consultative Group, a body formed in 2023 to strengthen the alliance and provide Seoul with more input in Washington’s extended deterrence planning. (See ACT, May 2023.)

After the June 11 meeting, the United States in a joint statement “reaffirmed the commitment to provide extended deterrence to [South Korea], utilizing the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.”

A second statement published in KCNA June 13 criticized South Korean President Lee Jae Myung for condemning North Korea’s “illegal military cooperation” with Russia in a June 10 joint statement issued after the South Korea-European Union summit. The statement also said that North Korea “will never be accepted as a nuclear-weapon state.”

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said that Lee’s proposal for peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas is impossible. The statement said Lee’s push for peace was a “deceptive farce” and South Korea is an “enemy state obsessed with hostility and confrontation.”