North Korea may be preparing to conduct an underground test of a nuclear bomb, the U.S. television network ABC reported Thursday.
A U.S. intelligence agency had recently detected "suspicious vehicle movement" at a suspected nuclear test site in North Korea, a senior military official was quoted as saying by the station.
The network also quoted a senior State Department official as saying, "It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is real possibility."
The ABC report said the activity at the suspected site included the unloading of large reels of cable outside an underground facility in northeast North Korea.
The report also said cables can be used in nuclear testing to connect an underground test site to observation equipment.
In February last year, North Korea claimed it has nuclear weapons, but it has never conducted nuclear tests. Multilateral talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear programs have been stalled since November amid disputes between Pyongyang and Washington. The North has said it would not return to the nuclear talks unless the U.S. lifted financial sanctions on it for alleged counterfeiting, money-laundering and other financial irregularities.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula further heightened in early July after the North defied international warnings and test-fired seven missiles into the East Sea. The missile tests prompted the U.N. Security Council to slap weapons-related sanctions on the communist state.
Last year, some media outlets reported North Korea might test its atomic weapons but no such test was made.
The ABC report said nuclear tests are "notoriously difficult" to detect in advance, saying the U.S. intelligence authorities failed to predict nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998. The report also said the North has enough nuclear materials to manufacture up to 12 atomic bombs.
Washington, Aug. 17 (Yonhap News)
N. Korea may be preparing underground nuclear test: ABC |
