N Korea ‘may have 100 nukes in five years’

WASHINGTON — North Korea may have as many as 100 nuclear weapons in five years if it achieves significant advances in designing tactical bombs, a United States researcher said, prompting the US government to say it is deeply concerned about the moves.

Mr Joel Wit, who researches Pyongyang at Johns Hopkins University’s US-Korea Institute, made the projection on Tuesday at a seminar in Washington. In an email to Bloomberg News, he said his moderate projection for North Korea’s nuclear stockpile is for it to grow to 50 bombs by 2020.

The assessment paints a more advanced scenario of the isolated state’s ability to produce nuclear arms than those by other estimates. Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker said last month that the Kim Jong-un regime probably has 12 nuclear bombs and may have eight more by the time US President Barack Obama leaves office in 2017.

Mr Sung Kim, US Special Representative for North Korea Policy, told a seminar that he could not comment on the new findings because he had not seen the report and American government assessments were classified.

“(But) obviously, we are deeply concerned about the fact that the North Koreans are continuing to advance their nuclear capabilities. We know they are continuing to work on their nuclear programme,” Mr Kim said.

Pyongyang has not made public how many bombs it has. It conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013 and has since repeatedly threatened to conduct another to deter what it calls US hostility. South Korea said last month that the North “may have made significant progress” in making nuclear bombs small enough to be loaded onto missiles.

Mr Wit, the co-author, described a “worst-case scenario” would see an increase to 100 devices by 2020 and significant technological advances allowing Pyongyang to deploy battlefield and tactical weapons if it chooses to.

“This is a pretty scary scenario,” he said, adding that the more nuclear weapons North Korea has, the more difficult it would be to try to coerce it to roll back its nuclear programme. “It’s a risky business trying to punish a country with so many nuclear weapons.”

The report said North Korea’s existing missile systems are able to reach most of North-east Asia, particularly its foes Seoul and Tokyo, and Pyongyang might in the future be able to deploy a limited number of Taepodong missiles — a militarised version of a space-launch vehicle — that could reach the US.

Mr Kim said concern over Pyongyang’s advances was driving international diplomatic efforts “to find a credible path to negotiation, so we can stop North Korea’s development of nuclear capabilities”.

He added that Washington is “under no illusions” about the North’s willingness to denuclearise voluntarily and would “continue to apply pressure both multilaterally and unilaterally” through sanctions to increase the cost of failing to do so.

Pyongyang has managed to grow its nuclear arsenal even as global sanctions have been stepped up since North Korea abandoned disarmament talks in 2009. The nation’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Tuesday that the country would increase its war deterrent as much as it could to deal with military drills by the US and Seoul.

Hours later, the allies told Pyongyang they would begin their annual drills on March 2. North Korea calls the exercises preparations for invasion, while Seoul and Washington say they are purely defensive. AGENCIES