North Korea, under rafts of UN sanctions for its development of banned weapons, is believed to operate uranium enrichment facilities at sites at Yongbyon, Kangson and Kusong.
It cut off access to IAEA inspectors in 2009. Since then, the agency has had to rely on satellite imagery and open sources to monitor the country’s nuclear programme.
In a report ahead of the conference, the agency’s head Rafael Grossi said it had identified an additional uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon, which Pyongyang purportedly decommissioned after talks but later reactivated in 2021.
The report also said an annex built at the Kangson enrichment site appears to have entered operation in January, noting a “further expansion” in the country’s ability to produce weapons-grade nuclear material.
It also references a “long-term plan” to strengthen the “national nuclear force” announced by Kim Jong Un in February, as well as a June visit by Kim to a “newly inaugurated nuclear materials production factory”.
