JACK KIM
Reuters
May 20, 2014
North Korea, which this month threatened to carry out a fourth
nuclear test, may be closer than previously thought to putting a nuclear
warhead on a missile, some experts say, making a mockery of years of
U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing such a program.
North Korea has long boasted of making strides in acquiring a
“nuclear deterrent”, but there had been general skepticism that it could
master the step of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to mount on a
ballistic missile.
No one outside the inner circle of North Korea’s nuclear program
likely knows what advances the country has made. But there has been a
shift in thinking by some who study North Korea full time since it
conducted a nuclear test in February last year and amid on-off
indications it is preparing another.
The isolated and poverty-stricken state, which regularly threatens to
destroy the United States and South Korea in a sea of flames, defends
its nuclear program as a “treasured sword” to counter what it sees as
U.S.-led hostility.
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