A combined photo of North Korea's nuclear facilities / Yonhap

The United States has restricted South Korea's access to intelligence related to North Korea's nuclear facilities in protest over the unification minister's disclosure of the country's uranium enrichment facility in Kusong, sources said Monday.

The South Korean military has claimed its readiness posture remains unhindered by Washington's decision, but concerns remain over a potential vacuum in Seoul's surveillance capabilities against the North.

The U.S. has restricted information sharing with Seoul on the North's nuclear facilities collected via satellites, including on a facility located in the western city of Kusong.

The move came as Unification Minister Chung Dong-young referred to North Korea's Kusong region as one of the three sites hosting the country's uranium enrichment facilities at a parliamentary session last month in a rare public disclosure of information on North Korea.

The U.S. is known to have complained about Chung's disclosure of the information, which it believes was based on intelligence shared by Washington. The unification ministry said last week Chung made the remarks based on "open information."

Neither Seoul nor Washington had officially recognized Kusong as a nuclear facility site in North Korea, identifying only Yongbyon and Kangson.

However, Kusong had also been suspected of accommodating the North's nuclear facilities since the mid-2010s, with a U.S. think tank citing the city as a potential location for housing one of the North's uranium enrichment facilities in 2016.

The U.S. had been on the lookout for unusual movements in North Korean regions suspected of accommodating its nuclear facilities, while sharing relevant information with South Korea's intelligence authorities.

South Korean military officials explained that the restriction on intelligence-sharing from the U.S. side did not immediately affect its intelligence gathering capabilities, citing real-time coordination between the allies during the recent series of back-to-back missile launches by the North in March and April.

Source: Korea Times News