Save<\/a>Share this articleCopy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un is ignoring international pressure by announcing an increase in his country’s nuclear arsenal. Photo \/ AFP<\/p>\n
North Korea\u2019s production of weapons-grade nuclear material has more than doubled in the past five years, and leader Kim Jong Un has vowed an \u201cexponential\u201d increase in military nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n
\n During a visit to a new nuclear material production facility, Kim said North Korea has confirmed an \u201cambitious future plan
\n designed to beef up our state\u2019s nuclear forces at an exponential rate\u201d, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.\n <\/p>\n
North Korea sees its nuclear arsenal as protection against attack from South Korea and United States forces stationed there.<\/p>\n
Of the planned increase, Kim said: \u201cThis signifies an amazing, successful change that is beyond rhetorical description, a historic event that has set up an epochal milestone in rapidly upgrading our nuclear capabilities\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rejecting pressure from the US, North Korea insists it will not give up its nuclear arsenal, describing its path as \u201cirreversible\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFP 3 Jun, 2026 11:21 PMQuick Read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10608,24607,24602,24597,24604,4278,24598,1518,31,4381,14982,24600,344,22100,4174,34,142,24603,3598,24601,24606,3815,24599,24605],"class_list":["post-40716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-north-korea","tag-announces","tag-capabilities","tag-doubled","tag-exponential","tag-five","tag-in","tag-increase","tag-jong","tag-korea","tag-koreas","tag-leader","tag-material","tag-military","tag-more","tag-north","tag-north-korea","tag-nuclear","tag-past","tag-production","tag-than","tag-vowed","tag-weapons","tag-weaponsgrade","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}