Tag: Yongbyon

Considering North Korea’s stated commitment to expanding its nuclear arsenal this news should not be surprising:

Recent commercial satellite imagery indicates North Korea continues to expand and refurbish its Yongbyon nuclear complex, reinforcing concerns the country is acting on leader Kim Jong-un’s recent call for an “exponential” increase in its nuclear arsenal, 38 North, a U.S. think tank, said Friday.

The report based on satellite imagery taken April 20 said significant construction and improvement activities have been detected throughout the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, particularly around the Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR), the 5 MWe Reactor and within the uranium conversion area.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I have figured that there is probably back channel talks going on and the firing up of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor to me is an indication of the Kim regime playing one of their cards. They can negotiate to shutdown the reactor and give the U.S. & the ROK a “win” in any agreement knowing full well they can just turn back on in the future at a time of their choosing:

The U.N. nuclear watchdog has detected “deeply troubling” indications that a key nuclear reactor at North Korea’s main Yongbyon complex has been in operation since July, including the release of cooling water, an annual report showed Monday.

Submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors on Friday, the report covered new developments of the five megawatt reactor, from which the North obtained spent fuel rods to extract plutonium — a fissile material used for a bomb — in the past.

The report based on satellite imagery and other sources came as Seoul and Washington push to resume dialogue with the North, following its furious reactions to the allies’ recently concluded annual military exercises.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It appears that the North Korean uranium enrichment facility has never slowed down operations during the recent peace initiative:

North Korea’s main nuclear complex shows continued activity around its uranium enrichment facility, indicating ongoing operations at the plant, a U.S. monitor said Wednesday.
38 North, a project run by the Stimson Center think tank, said recent commercial satellite imagery shows the movement of vehicles, equipment and personnel near the uranium facility at Yongbyon.
“Our observation, that periodic material transport (e.g., possibly to deliver liquid nitrogen) has continued at the Uranium Enrichment Complex over time, provides a new indicator that the complex is operational, and therefore that it is also most likely producing enriched uranium,” 38 North said on its website, citing satellite imagery from past months up to May 28.
“However, we do not have any definitive means to determine either the actual levels of enrichment or the total production throughput of the ~4000 centrifuges at this time,” it added.
North Korea has built nuclear weapons from both plutonium and uranium, with some estimating that the regime now holds an arsenal of 20 to 30 nuclear weapons.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the original 38 North article can be read at this link.

I can still remember the days when the North Korean apologists were all saying that former President Bush was lying about North Korea having a uranium program. Now many of these same people are still giving advice about North Korea.

I would not be surprised if the Kim regime intentionally made sure this was captured on satellite imagery just to further pressure the US to cut a “pretend denuclearization” deal with them:

Commercial satellite imagery from last week shows activity that could indicate the movement of radioactive material at North Korea’s main nuclear facility, a U.S. think tank said Tuesday.
The April 12 imagery shows five specialized railcars near the uranium enrichment facility and the radiochemistry laboratory at the Yongbyon nuclear site, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“In the past these specialized railcars appear to have been associated with the movement of radioactive material or reprocessing campaigns,” it said in a report.
“The current activity, along with their configurations, does not rule out their possible involvement in such activity, either before or after a reprocessing campaign,” it added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the price for North Korea for the Trump-Kim II Summit will be closing their Yongbyon nuclear facility:

The second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, scheduled for the end of February, is expected to primarily deal with shutting down North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility and with corresponding measures by the US as part of fleshing out the joint statement signed by the two leaders in their Singapore summit on June 12, 2018, according to a high-ranking official at South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The question of building a peace regime is also expected to receive considerable attention.

“The US also places considerable significance” on North Korea’s conditional offer to shut down the Yongbyon reactor, a senior official at the Foreign Ministry who is familiar with the North Korea-US negotiations said during a meeting with reporters on Jan. 31. “Since this idea was brought up by North Korea, the discussion will focus on Yongbyon and then move on to other topics.”

During the inter-Korean Pyongyang Joint Statement in Sept. 2018, North Korea expressed its willingness to permanently close the Yongbyon nuclear facility presuming that the US takes corresponding measures, but some have argued that the Yongbyon facility is so old that closing it would have little value.

Hankyoreh

You can read more at the link, but closing Yongbyon is of more symbolic value for the US because the Kim regime can just reopen it whenever they decide to create another crisis. Even if they completely destroyed and dismantled Yongbyon such a deal does nothing to identify and shutdown any clandestine nuclear sites they may have.

It will be interesting to see what the US gives up in return for closing Yongbyon because the article claims that sanctions especially on the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the Kumgang Tours will remain in place. That means that a peace treaty and/or humanitarian aid will likely be what is offered.

Here we go again with pretend denuclearization:

Kim earlier expressed a willingness to permanently shut down the site in Yongbyon if the U.S. took “corresponding” measures, but his apparent offer to allow verification has not been reported.

If true, Kim’s offer would mark a significant step toward meeting U.S. demands for full and verified denuclearization, a position Washington has stuck to since a historic Trump-Kim summit in June.

Here is some more interesting imagery analysis from the folks at 38 North:

Commercial satellite imagery from June 21 indicates that improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center are continuing at a rapid pace. Modifications to the 5 MWe plutonium production reactor’s cooling system appear complete, but a less-than-normal cooling water discharge from the outfall pipe makes a determination of the reactor’s operational status difficult. The status of the Radiochemical Laboratory—used to separate plutonium from spent fuel rods—remains uncertain, although the associated Thermal Plant has likely continued operations, and a small non-industrial building of an unknown purpose has been newly erected near the cooling tower. Construction continues on support facilities throughout other operational areas of Yongbyon, especially at the Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR), where the new engineering office building appears externally complete and a small building similar to the one observed at the Radiochemical Laboratory has been erected.

Continued work at the Yongbyon facility should not be seen as having any relationship to North Korea’s pledge to denuclearize. The North’s nuclear cadre can be expected to proceed with business as usual until specific orders are issued from Pyongyang.  [38 North]

You can read much more and see the imagery analysis at the link.

I would not be surprised if the Kim regime is trying to rush completion of these projects and then try and declare that these facilities are for peaceful nuclear energy use.  The North Koreans could argue that South Korea has nuclear power plants, why can’t they?  This would allow the regime to maintain the ability to quickly process material for nuclear weapons again if they were to agree to give up the nuclear weapons they already have.

By the way, ROK Heads may remember that 38 North was part of the US-Korea Institute that the Moon administration tried to get certain employees of the think tank removed from because of their conservative leanings.  Since USKI would not remove the employees the Korean government cut funding and USKI was shutdown.  The shutdown of the USKI was part of a larger effort by the Moon administration to take control of media in South Korea.  Articles like this one showing continued nuclear upgrades by North Korea despite pledges to denuclearize are the types of articles the Moon administration may have wanted to suppress if they still controlled USKI.  It is good to see that 38 North has continued to publish despite the shutdown of the USKI.

Kim Jong-un is taking a play out of his father’s denuclearization playbook with his announcement that he will seal the shafts at this nuclear test site:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has promised to dismantle a “northern” nuclear test site in May in full view of experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States, Cheong Wa Dae said on Sunday.

Kim made the promise during talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the president’s top press secretary Yoon Young-chan said.

Kim said the site is still “usable” and “there are two more shafts that are bigger than the one (to be dismantled) which are sturdy,” according to Yoon.

Kim did not specify the location of the site to be dismantled, but given the North’s past announcement, it is believed to be in Gilju, North Hamgyong Province. On April 21, Kim declared the shutdown of the Gilju site, along with a freeze on missile and nuclear tests.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but when I read this I though immediately back to 2008 when Kim Jong-il blew up a cooling tower at it Yongbyon nuclear plant:

In a gesture demonstrating its commitment to halt its nuclear weapons program, North Korea blew up the most prominent symbol of its plutonium production Friday.

The 60 foot, or 18meter, cooling tower at North Korea’s main nuclear power plant collapsed in a heap of shattered concrete and twisted steel, filmed by international and regional television broadcasters invited to witness the event.

The destruction of the tower, the most visible element of the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, about 100 kilometers, or 60 miles north of Pyongyang, bore witness to the incremental progress that has been made in U.S.-led multilateral efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.  [NY Times, June 27, 2008]

The North Koreans eventually rebuilt the cooling tower and reopened the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2013.  As little as two months ago satellite imagery showed the plant producing plutonium.  Much like with the destruction of the cooling tower, the sealing of shafts at their Punggye-ri nuclear test site is easily reversible at a time of the Kim regime’s choosing.  However, when this event happens most of the international media and Korean leftists will once again seize on the dramatic images this is sure to bring as evidence that the Kim regime really means to denuclearize this time.

I will know Kim Jong-un means to denuclearize when the entire Yongbyon plant is demolished and his nuclear weapons and material are removed from the country.  Until this happens everyone is just continuing to play along with this great facade which the closure of the nuclear test site will be another part of.

While North Korea is claiming they are willing to denuclearize they are on the other hand busy making more enriched plutonium for nuclear weapons:

38 North said the 5-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex shows signs of operation, including steam vapor plumes from the generator hall and nearby river ice melt.

The monitoring website also spotted a new military tent camp established last month on the complex, more personnel and two large open-bed trucks.

The website, which is run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, examined commercial satellite images from Feb. 17 and Feb. 25.

38 North’s analysts noted that no cooling water discharges have been observed as would be expected under normal operations but said that was likely because the North Koreans had hidden them by extending a discharge pipe into the river.

“If the reactor is operating again, as the evidence suggests, it means North Korea has resumed production of plutonium presumably for its nuclear weapons program,” said the analysis by experts Frank Pabian, Joseph Bermudez Jr. and Jack Liu.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I believe this news is all part of North Korea’s pressure campaign against the United States to get the Trump administration to agree to a “freeze deal”.  As part of the deal the Kim regime can agree to suspend plutonium production in return for sanctions busting concessions.

The ROK military is reporting that the North Koreans have their nuclear reactor up and operating again:

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) believes that North Korea’s five-megawatt nuclear reactor in Yongbyon is in operations.

Cho Bo-keun, chief of the JCS’ national defense intelligence department, presented the assessment Monday in response to lawmakers’ questions during a parliamentary audit of the JCS.  [KBS World]

You can read more at the link, but it is pretty clear that the North Koreans are eager for some kind of pay day to once again shutdown their nuclear reactor.  The problem the North Koreans have is that no one wants to fall for this trick again and pay them to shutdown their reactor to only have them turn it back on again when they need more money.