Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-09-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by Siegfried Hecker, published on 12 September, concluding that North Korea will have enough material for about 20 nuclear bombs by the end of this year, that it has expanded uranium enrichment facilities, and that it has stockpiled plutonium.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

We have made clear our deep concern at and condemnation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) nuclear programme. We take into account all sources of information when assessing it. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) made clear in his remarks to the UN Security Council on 23 September, that the United Kingdom condemns the recent nuclear test conducted by the DPRK, which is a direct violation of binding Security Council Resolutions. The DPRK must comply with its obligations under all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, including abandoning all nuclear weapons and nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.