As the world turns its attention to nuclear proliferation in Iran, North Korea is denying threats that it, too, is developing weapons of mass destruction.
Earlier this month, experts at a think tank out of Johns Hopkins University said that a new pesticide factory in the communist regime’s territory is potentially capable of producing “military-sized batches of biological weapons,” including deadly anthrax.
North Korean state media released pictures of their leader, Kim Jong-un, touring a pesticide factory. After seeing these photos, experts became deeply worried.
Should this analysis prove true, the production facility is not only a potential threat to Western nations and their Asian allies, it is also a violation of several treaties to which North Korea is a party.
“North Korea, as a member of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is prohibited from biological weapons development, production and use,” the think tank reports.
They also believe that the fact that North Korean media is publishing the pictures of their leader at this production facility can be interpreted as a veiled threat towards the United States and South Korea.
North Korea flatly rejects the claims of these experts.
In a statement released Monday, a representative of Kim Jong-un requested that President Obama himself, along with all 535 U.S. Senators and Congressmen, personally inspect the production facility. The autocrat claims that they will find no suspicious material or production efforts.
“Through that opportunity, [U.S. officials] would see for themselves the impressive state of Pyongyang Bio-tech Institute, which has surpassed state-of-the-art technology,” a North Korean spokesman said.
The statement also took a shot at the state of human rights in the United States, claiming that the high-ranking government officials they wanted to inspect the plant could also see what a society that “protects human rights” looks like.
North Koreans live under what is one of the most unfree regimes on the planet.
Human rights organizations across the globe often issue reports explaining just how unfree the country is. A free press is nonexistent, and citizens are frequently imprisoned for political dissent and religious activity.
In 2014, a United Nations commission issued a 400-page report detailing the crimes against humanity the North Korean communists frequently commit. Some activists say even that report is not nearly exhaustive enough.
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