North Korea claims it can miniaturize nuclear weapons

Asia-Pacific, News May 20, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

North Korea said on Wednesday that it had already built nuclear weapons small enough to be carried by missiles, even as a senior American general questioned the country’s recent claim that it had successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

“It is long since the D.P.R.K.’s nuclear striking means have entered the stage of producing smaller nukes and diversifying them,” the National Defense Commission said in a statement, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The statement was carried by the official news agency, K.C.N.A.

“The D.P.R.K. has reached the stage of ensuring the highest precision and intelligence and best accuracy of not only medium- and short-range rockets, but long-range ones,” the agency said.

Officials and analysts in Washington and Seoul remain uncertain and even divided over how close North Korea has come to acquiring a nuclear weapon small enough to be put on a missile, or its ability to deliver a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile. But their concern has grown since the North placed a satellite into orbit in December 2012, successfully demonstrating a rocket technology needed for a long-range missile.

Analysts and U.S. officials have said previously that they suspected Kim Jong Un‘s regime was working toward accomplishing the technical feat, which is needed to fit a nuclear device on the tip of a ballistic missile.

But on Wednesday, the official U.S. response was skepticism.

“Our assessment of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities has not changed,” National Security Council spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement. “We do not think that they have that capacity.”

“However, they are working on developing a number of long range missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, that could eventually threaten our allies and the homeland,” the U.S. spokesman added. “That is why the Administration is working to improve regional and homeland missile defenses and continuing to work with the other members of the six-party talks to bring North Korea back into compliance with its nonproliferation commitments.”

The six-party talks refer to nuclear disarmament efforts by the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

But the North Korean assertion was unequivocal.

“We have had the capability of miniaturizing nuclear warheads, as well as producing multiform weapons, for some time,” the North Korean military said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

“We can also guarantee the accuracy not only of short-to-mid-range but also long-range rocket launches, for which we have had the technology for a long time,” the statement said.