SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea’s biennial white paper, launched this week, has described North Korea as its “enemy” for the primary time in six years.
The white paper presents a glimpse into the reclusive North’s rising arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles, in addition to its standard army capabilities.
“As North Korea continues to pose military threats without giving up nuclear weapons, its regime and military, which are the main agents of the execution, are our enemies,” the doc mentioned.
To beef up its nuclear stockpile, North Korea has continued reprocessing spent gas from its reactor and possesses about 70kg of weapons-grade plutonium, up from 50kg estimated within the earlier report, it mentioned.
The North has additionally secured “substantial amounts of highly enriched uranium” and has reached a “significant level of capability” to miniaturize atomic bombs by way of six nuclear checks, an outline that continues to be unchanged since 2018.
“Our military is strengthening surveillance as the possibility of an additional nuclear test is rising,” the paper mentioned, citing the restoration final yr of beforehand destroyed tunnels on the North’s testing web site.
Of notice, the South Korean the paper known as Japan a “close neighbour that shares values” for the primary time since 2016, amid efforts to fix ties strained by historical past and commerce spats.