North Korea may possess as many as 120 nuclear weapons, South Korea’s defense minister said, more than twice the 57 warheads cited by US President Donald Trump, who is seeking to revive diplomacy with Kim Jong Un.
“The numbers appear to be somewhat different,” Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back told lawmakers Thursday when asked about Trump’s assessment. “We usually look at around 80 to 120,” he said, referring to South Korea’s estimates.
Ahn later clarified that he was citing an assessment by a South Korean research institute. “As for the military’s own assessment, there are considerable limitations on what I can disclose here,” he said.
The discrepancy underscores the scale of the challenge confronting Trump as he tries to resurrect the personal diplomacy with Kim that defined his first time as president. Trump earlier said that Kim has “57 very powerful nuclear weapons” and he “wouldn’t have allowed it” if he had been president as the arsenal expanded.
“I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine. As long as we have a smart president, he’s going to be fine,” Trump said.
The remarks come as Seoul seeks to maintain momentum for dialogue even as Pyongyang denies any top-level communication with Washington and dismisses the US decision to scale down joint drills with South Korea.
“The latest message from President Trump strikes me as a major decision reflecting deep consideration of how to move beyond hostility and confrontation and build peace on the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said in a late-night X post on Wednesday.
If sustained, the pace would eventually put North Korea’s stockpile on par with France’s in size, if not sophistication, and well above Israel’s roughly 90 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates. North Korea is believed to have about 60 nuclear warheads and enough fissile material to produce at least 30 more, according to SIPRI’s latest report.
The expanding arsenal complicates Trump’s effort to revive diplomacy with Kim. The US and South Korea this week announced that they would cut short their joint military drills after Trump ordered them scaled back, citing his good relationship with Kim. Trump also said Kim had responded to requests for the two leaders to have a conversation, a claim denied by Pyongyang.
North Korea shrugged off the surprise move aimed at easing tension with Pyongyang, saying that despite the “excellent” relationship between Trump and Kim, US hostile policy has remained unchanged. South Korean President Lee nevertheless welcomed Trump’s move as a potential opening for renewed diplomacy.
“We share President Trump’s determination and efforts to create conditions for dialogue aimed at establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, even by scaling back the South Korea-US joint exercises and field training, and we commend him for the decision,” Lee said.
Trump and Kim met three times during the US leader’s first term, but the talks failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Kim has since emerged as a key ally of Russia in President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, leaving him with few incentives to immediately engage with the US over its prized nuclear program.
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Bloomberg news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.