North Korea could have fuel for 48 nuclear weapons by 2015

North Korea will have been able to build as many as 48 nuclear weapons by 2015 unless the international community is able to make sanctions already imposed on the regime work. 

 

The stark warning about Pyongyang's nuclear stockpile was issued by The Institute for Science and International Security, which projected three scenarios for North Korea's atomic weapons programme.

In the best-case scenario for the next four years outlined by the researchers, North Korea will have been able to use the centrifuges at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to produce sufficient low enriched uranium for a maximum of 25 nuclear weapons.

That figure is an increase of only two warheads from its estimated nuclear arsenal at present.

The 40-page report, jointly authored by David Albright, head of the Washington-based institute, and Christina Walrond, a research institute, is based on scientific and statistical data for its conclusions and offers a more worrying worst-case scenario.

"If North Korea has two centrifuge plants, however, it could produce a much larger quantity of WGU (weapons-grade uranium)," the analysts concluded. "It could have 37-48 nuclear weapons, or an increase of 25 weapons, most of which would be produced in 2015 and 2016."

To date, North Korea's research has been focused on plutonium weapons and the regime carried out nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
Those tests, along with the test firing of a nuclear-capable missile in April, triggered international condemnation and the tightening of sanctions, but Pyongyang remains defiant.
Analysts believe that North Korean scientists are now focusing their research on uranium and its potential as a weapon.
Pyongyang has a minimum of six – and potentially as many as 18 – plutonium bombs, while another recent ISIS study predicted that North Korea will complete construction of a new light-water reactor at Yongbyon in late 2013.