Seoul: North Korea will eventually be
able to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit in a
missile, a news report said on Sunday.
Seoul's Yonhap news agency, citing the state-run Korea
Institute for Defence Analyses (KIDA), said Pyongyang
developing the technology to achieve miniaturisation was
inevitable.
"It is believed that North Korea has not completed the
technology for the miniaturisation... of nuclear warheads,"
KIDA said in a report to be issued in January, according to
Yonhap.
But KIDA said it is "just a matter of time", noting
the country has a high-explosives test site and an estimated
3,000 nuclear scientists and researchers.
The North has 28 state organisations for nuclear
development led by the powerful National Defence Commission
and the ruling communist party, the KIDA report said,
according to Yonhap.
It has conducted nuclear tests twice -- in October,
2006, and in May this year.
KIDA officials were not immediately available for
comment.
The North quit six-party nuclear disarmament talks
with the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan
in April, after the UN Security Council's censure of its
long-range rocket launch.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, December 20, 2009, 19:11