N. Korea likely to try third nuke test
Source: Agencies |
April 19, 2012, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
NORTH Korea said yesterday it was ready to retaliate in the face of international condemnation over its failed rocket launch, increasing the chance the state will push ahead with a third nuclear test.
North Korea also ditched an agreement to allow back inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. That followed a US decision, in response to a rocket launch the United States says was a disguised long-range missile test, to break off a deal earlier this year to provide North Korea with food aid.
Pyongyang called the US move a hostile act and said it was no longer bound to stick to its side of the February 29 agreement.
"We have thus become able to take necessary retaliatory measures, free from the agreement," the official KCNA news agency said, without being specific.
Many analysts expect that with its third test, North Korea will for the first time try a nuclear device using highly enriched uranium, something it was long suspected of developing but which it only publicly admitted to about two years ago.
Defense experts say that by successfully enriching uranium, to make bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima nearly 70 years ago, North Korea would be able to significantly build up stocks of weapons-grade nuclear material.
It would also allow it more easily to manufacture a nuclear warhead to mount on a long-range missile.
North Korea has insisted that last week's rocket launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit.
North Korea also ditched an agreement to allow back inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. That followed a US decision, in response to a rocket launch the United States says was a disguised long-range missile test, to break off a deal earlier this year to provide North Korea with food aid.
Pyongyang called the US move a hostile act and said it was no longer bound to stick to its side of the February 29 agreement.
"We have thus become able to take necessary retaliatory measures, free from the agreement," the official KCNA news agency said, without being specific.
Many analysts expect that with its third test, North Korea will for the first time try a nuclear device using highly enriched uranium, something it was long suspected of developing but which it only publicly admitted to about two years ago.
Defense experts say that by successfully enriching uranium, to make bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima nearly 70 years ago, North Korea would be able to significantly build up stocks of weapons-grade nuclear material.
It would also allow it more easily to manufacture a nuclear warhead to mount on a long-range missile.
North Korea has insisted that last week's rocket launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit.
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