North Korea could have up to 2 tonnes of highly enriched uranium: Seoul

North Korea is believed to possess up to two tonnes of highly enriched uranium, South Korea's unification minister said Thursday.

The North has long been known to hold a "significant" amount of highly enriched uranium, the key material used to produce nuclear warheads, according to South Korea's defence ministry.

But in a rare public confirmation, South Korea's unification minister said that "according to estimates by experts including the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) they (North Korea) currently hold around 2,000 kilogrammes of highly enriched uranium at a purity of 90 percent or higher."

"Even at this very hour, North Korea's uranium centrifuges are operating at four sites," Chung Dong-young told reporters.

"Only five to six kg of plutonium is enough to build a single nucl