A South Korean minister told lawmakers that North Korea is estimated to have up to 60 nuclear weapons, in Seoul’s first public comment about the size of the North’s secrecy-clouded weapons arsenal.
South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told the South Korean parliament on Monday that the estimates on the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal range from 20 bombs to as many as 60.
He was responding to a question by a lawmaker, saying the information came from the intelligence authorities.
The South Korean National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, could not immediately comment.
Cho might have unintentionally revealed the information.
The ministry yesterday said Cho’s comments did not mean that South Korea would accept North Korea as a nuclear state, suggesting that Seoul’s diplomatic efforts to rid the North of its nuclear program would continue.
The South Korean assessment on the North’s arsenal is not much different from various outside civilian estimates largely based on the amount of nuclear materials that North is believed to have produced.
According to South Korean government reports, North Korea is believed to have produced 50kg of weaponized plutonium, enough for at least eight bombs, as Pyongyang can make one warhead with 8kg of plutonium or less.
Stanford University academics, including nuclear physicist Siegfried Hecker who visited North Korea’s centrifuge facility at Nyongbyon in 2010, earlier this year wrote that North Korea is estimated to have a highly enriched uranium inventory of 250kg to 500kg, sufficient for 25 to 30 nuclear devices.
Many foreign experts have said North Korea is likely running additional secret uranium-enrichment plants.
The North earlier this year entered talks with the US and South Korea, saying it is willing to negotiate away its advancing nuclear arsenal.
Nuclear diplomacy later stalled due to suspicions over how sincere North Korea is about its disarmament pledge, but US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to visit Pyongyang this month to set up a second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
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