Global concern about N Korea

2005-06-01 13:43

Seoul - North Korea's boast that it has made nuclear weapons has caused global concern, but the jitters could turn to panic if Pyongyang masters the art of miniaturisation.

Most experts were keeping an open mind on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme because the country was so tightly controlled and they had too little information to work on.

Many believed that Pyongyang had one or two nuclear bombs, but that they were so big they could not effectively be loaded into planes, let alone fired by missiles.

The technology to build the bomb was one thing, but in order to use them effectively, particularly on ballistic missiles, North Korea would have to acquire the tricky skill of miniaturising a nuclear warhead.

When North Korea said in February that it possessed nuclear weapons, confirming long-held suspicions in the United States, South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Pyongyang probably lacked the technology to fire them on a rocket.

'500kg to be mounted on missile'

The NIS report said: "North Korea might have developed one or two conventional nuclear bombs, but if it did, it may not have the technology to launch them on a missile.

"We believe North Korea has not acquired enough technology to miniaturise nuclear bombs which must weigh less than 500kg to be mounted on a missile."

North Korea had a well-advanced missile programme and among Washington's greatest fears was that Pyongyang could breech the technical threshold of marrying its ballistic missile development with its nuclear weapons drive.

In April, the head of the US defence intelligence agency, Vice-Admiral Lowell Jacoby, told a Senate committee hearing in Washington that US intelligence agencies believed North Korea had mastered the technology for arming its missiles with nuclear warheads, though he did not say Pyongyang had actually done so.

North Korean capabilities

The Pentagon later took a step back from Jacoby's assessment, saying it was "theoretical in nature", but US President George W Bush said it was safer to err on the side of overstatement when dealing with North Korean capabilities.

He said: "There is concern about his capacity to deliver. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best when dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il to assume that he can."

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb who was now under house arrest, had admitted playing an important role in North Korea's atomic development.

Clandestine co-operation between Khan and the North Koreans since the 1990s had reportedly included the provision of warhead designs to North Korea.

Khan had also claimed that during one of his many visit to North Korea he saw a missile carrying a nuclear warhead.

Kang Jungmin, a South Korean nuclear analyst based in Seoul said: "That is not impossible."

- AFP