SEOUL, June 11 (Reuters) – U.S. and South Korean officials discussed strengthening nuclear deterrence and readiness against North Korea\u2019s growing weapons programme on Thursday, South Korea\u2019s defence ministry said, at talks \u200cin Seoul under their Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG).<\/p>\n
The meeting follows growing concern that North Korea is expanding \u200cits capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear material, after state media showed leader Kim Jong Un inspecting a newly operating nuclear-material production plant \u200band calling for an “exponential” expansion of the country’s nuclear forces.<\/p>\n
The sixth meeting of the group was co-chaired by Kim Hong-cheol, Seoul’s defence policy chief, and Robert Soofer, a senior U.S. defence official handling nuclear deterrence and weapons of mass destruction policy.<\/p>\n
Officials from defence, foreign ministry and intelligence agencies also attended.<\/p>\n
The ministry said the two sides reviewed \u200cprogress across the consultative group’s work, \u2060from information sharing and crisis procedures to joint drills and messaging, and explored ways to further bolster allied nuclear deterrence and readiness.<\/p>\n
Last week, North Korea released images of \u2060Kim visiting a newly launched nuclear-material production facility and said he had reviewed plans to expand the country’s nuclear forces, in what analysts saw as a sign of Pyongyang’s intent to increase fissile-material output.<\/p>\n
Hong Min, a senior researcher at \u200bthe \u200bKorea Institute for National Unification, said North Korea\u2019s output of \u200bweapons\u2011grade nuclear material and its ability to \u200cmass\u2011produce warheads could be higher than previously thought. That would be possible if several enrichment sites become fully operational, including Kangson, a new facility at Yongbyon, and a possible site in Kusong, he said.<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal reported that North Korea’s uranium-enrichment capacity could rise by about 75% once the new Yongbyon facility reaches full production, citing analysis by VERTIC, a London-based arms-control verification nonprofit.<\/p>\n
The facility was estimated to contain more than \u200c9,000 centrifuges capable of producing about 160 kg (353 lb) of \u200bhighly enriched uranium a year, on top of an estimated previous \u200bannual capacity of about 215 kg, the \u200breport said.<\/p>\n
Chinese President Xi Jinping also visited Pyongyang this week, his first trip there \u200cin seven years. Chinese and North Korean readouts \u200bemphasised stronger political, economic and \u200bcultural cooperation, but made no mention of denuclearisation.<\/p>\n
The NCG was launched after the 2023 Washington Declaration, a U.S.-South Korean pact that included giving South Korea more insight into U.S. nuclear planning over any \u200bconflict with North Korea.<\/p>\n
The talks come \u200cas Seoul is pursuing a transfer of wartime operational control from Washington, a process that \u200bhas raised questions over how the allies would coordinate nuclear planning and conventional forces.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bJoyce Lee and Heekyong Yang, Editing by William Maclean)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL, June 11 (Reuters) – U.S. and South Korean officials discussed strengthening nuclear deterrence and readiness against North…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16675,28644,141,171,34,9096,8327,5501,24570,1484,518],"class_list":["post-49509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-defence-ministry","tag-defence-policy","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-korean","tag-north-korea","tag-nuclear-consultative-group","tag-nuclear-deterrence","tag-nuclear-forces","tag-nuclear-material","tag-south-korean","tag-weapons-of-mass-destruction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509","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=49509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}