South Korea on Friday said North Korea's recent nuclear test posed a serious threat to the nation's security, but refused to call the communist state a full-fledged nuclear power.
In its biennial Defense White Paper released Friday, the Ministry of Defense said the North's conventional weapons and its frontline troops continued to pose serious threats to the country.
"North Korea's conventional military strength, nuclear test, WMD and deployment of its armaments along the front line are serious threats to our security," the report said.
The overall urgency of the paper was noticeably increased from that of the 2004 edition as it followed North Korea's first-ever nuclear weapons test on Oct. 9.
The ministry, however, failed to label North Korea as the country's main enemy, reflecting Seoul's continued efforts to warm up its relations with Pyongyang.
"Considering the seriousness of threats from (North Korea's) nuclear test and weapons of mass destruction, the government described the North's military strength as a serious threat in this year's edition," a ministry official told reporters while asking not to be identified.
The white paper said the North was estimated to have obtained some 30 kilograms of plutonium, enough to make up to five atomic bombs, in the last three years, but claimed the communist nation has yet to become a full-fledged nuclear state.
"North Korea is estimated to have obtained an additional 30 kilograms of plutonium if it reprocessed spent fuel rods in 2003 and 2005 as it had claimed," the paper said.
The North has been believed to possess up to 14 kilograms of plutonium it obtained in the early 1990s by extracting the nuclear substance from spent fuel rods used in nuclear reactors.
The ministry official later said the North's nuclear detonation test in October posed new threats to the country, but said the threats were not as serious as those from a nuclear state.
"(The government) sees the test as a partial success," the official said.
"We believe (the device used in the test) is less powerful than a normal nuclear weapon and little more powerful than a conventional nuclear bomb," the official added.
Despite years of economic hardship, the communist state also continued to increase its conventional arms this year, according to the white paper.
The paper said the North acquired some 200 artillery cannons, which can directly strike Seoul when deployed at the inter-Korean border.
A total of five North Korean fighter jets have crashed since 2004, a faint evidence of the North's troubles from its aging arms, but the paper said the communist state's air capability continued to pose grave concerns for the South.
Some 40 percent of the North's 820 fighter jets were deployed just north of the inter-Korean border, according to the paper, placing the South Korean capital within only minutes' reach.
Repeating the government's recent calls for the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean troops from the United States, the white paper explains in detail the background and reasons for Seoul's demand.
The divided Koreas have technically remained in a state of war for over half a century as the 1950-53 Korean War only ended with an armistice.
A complete version of the Defense White Paper is to be posted on the Defense Ministry's Web site, www.mnd.go.kr, while an English version of the report is due in March.
Seoul, Dec. 29 (Yonhap News)
Defense white paper says N. Korean nuclear test a 'serious' threat |
