YONGBYON — International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said that North Korea has rapidly expanded operations at its Yongbyon nuclear site and other nuclear facilities, pointing to a substantial increase in the country's nuclear weapons production capacity. The IAEA observed a rise in operations at Yongbyon's reprocessing unit and its light-water reactor, along with the activation of additional nuclear facilities in North Korea.

"In our periodic assessments, we have been able to confirm that there's a rapid increase in the operations of the Yongbyon reactor," Grossi said. "All that points to a very serious increase in the capabilities of [the] DPRK in the area of nuclear weapons production, which is estimated at a few dozen warheads," he added.

The IAEA has also noted the construction of a new facility that resembles the existing enrichment facility at Yongbyon. "We consider, looking at external features of the facility, that there will be a significant increase in the enrichment capacity of the DPRK," he said in a separate assessment of the new construction.

According to South Korea's spy agency, North Korea operates multiple facilities for enriching uranium, including one at the Yongbyon nuclear site. The Yongbyon enrichment facility was purportedly decommissioned following diplomatic talks, but according to the agency it was reactivated in 2021. He said the IAEA had not seen anything indicating that Russia was assisting North Korea's nuclear development.

North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is under United Nations sanctions for its weapons programs. The country has declared that it will never surrender its nuclear weapons. North Korea cut off access to IAEA inspectors in 2009, forcing the agency to rely on satellite imagery and other external monitoring methods to assess activity at the country's nuclear sites. The lack of on-the-ground inspections has limited the IAEA's ability to verify precise details of North Korea's nuclear program, making periodic external assessments a primary tool for tracking developments at facilities such as Yongbyon.