|
| N.Korea Has Bought Complete Nuclear Bomb - Report |
| Friday, January 28, 2005 |
January 27, 2005
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington.
Seoul Shinmun quoted the source as saying the United States was checking the intelligence.
The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing that could be detected from the outside, the source was quoted as saying.
North Korea is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight.
U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon said after a visit to the North this month that its second-ranked leader had told his delegation that it possessed nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang has declared that a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, sealed under a 1994 agreement with the United States, had been restarted. Spent nuclear fuel from that reactor could be converted to weapons-grade material.
North Korea has never officially declared that it possessed atomic weapons, speaking instead of its "nuclear deterrent."
U.S. experts who visited the Yongbyon facility said spent plutonium previously stored there had been removed.
North Korea is suspected of running a separate program based on uranium enrichment technology, assisted by a former top Pakistani nuclear scientist.
|
posted by J.R. @ 10:49:00 AM   |
|
|
|
| |
