IAEA: North Korea is making progress in creating nuclear weapons
NEW YORK, March 21. /Offset. TASS Kirill Volkov/. North Korea in recent years, making significant progress in building nuclear weapons. This was stated in published on Monday an interview with the WSJ the Director General of the International atomic energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano.
According to him, since 2010, the area of a nuclear facility in Yongbyon, where the DPRK, as expected, is working on uranium enrichment, increased at least twice.
“All evidence indicates that North Korea is making progress (in creating a nuclear weapons — approx. TASS), as she stated,” — said Amano, whose IAEA Board of governors earlier this month was appointed for a third term as Director General of the Agency. However, he declined to speculate exactly how many nuclear weapons may currently consist of the Arsenal of the DPRK.
Amano also expressed the belief that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula can be achieved only by diplomatic means, that is, swiping from the Pyongyang talks. “This is a highly politicized issue, you need a political agreement,” said Amano, adding that, in his opinion, achieving such agreement in the foreseeable future is unlikely. “The situation is very bad. We have no reason to be optimistic,” — he stressed.
In 2013, Pyongyang announced its decision to resume the work at all facilities at Yongbyon, where the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. About half of the nuclear Arsenal of the DPRK is created using highly enriched uranium, the other part — with the use of weapons-grade plutonium. According to specialists in the United States, by 2020, Pyongyang will have, depending on various factors, from 20 to 125 nuclear explosive devices.