February 22, 2007	Thursday	Safar 4, 1428

SEOUL, Feb 21: North Korea is capable of arming its medium-range Nodong missile with a crude nuclear warhead, two US experts said in a report released on Wednesday.

The report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) also estimates that the communist state has separated enough plutonium to build about five to 12 nuclear weapons.

It says the North’s strategy, given the presumed limits of its arsenal, is based on deterring any attack. “In such a case, the detonation of nuclear weapons as ‘warning shots’ in a crisis might result.” In the early stage of a crisis, the ISIS report says, a nuclear test could be staged to prevent further escalation. “If that failed to stop the crisis, it may detonate a warhead over the sea as a further demonstration.” Should war break out, “North Korea would be expected to use its nuclear weapons against military targets and population centres in South Korea or Japan.”

The North, which agreed in principle last week to disable its nuclear facilities, has been working to develop a nuclear warhead for the Nodong since at least 1994, say the report’s authors, ISIS chief David Albright and Paul Brannan.

It is also suspected to have obtained warhead designs from accused nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

“North Korea is judged capable of putting a crude (nuclear) warhead on a Nodong missile,” says the report, which follows a visit by former UN nuclear inspector Albright and former State Department official Joel Wit to Pyongyang early this month.The Nodong, a variant of the Soviet Scud with a potential range of 1,000-1,300km, could reach parts of Japan. But the report says the warhead may not be reliable and may have a relatively low yield.

It estimates that North Korea, which conducted its first nuclear test last October, has a plutonium stockpile of 46-64kgs of which 28-50kg are estimated to be in separated form and usable in weapons.

The vast majority of the separated plutonium, it says, has been produced since a 1994 deal with the United States, which shut down the Yongbyon plutonium-producing reactor, collapsed in late 2002.

The 1994 Agreed Framework broke down when the US accused the North of cheating on it by running a secret highly enriched uranium programme, something the North has publicly denied.

Under the new deal reached last week during six-nation talks in Beijing, the North agreed to disable its nuclear facilities in exchange for energy aid.

As a first step it will shut down and seal Yongbyon within 60 days, re-admit UN nuclear inspectors and receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid in return.

Action to permanently disable the nuclear facilities would be rewarded with up to 950,000 tons of heavy oil or other aid.

Critics say the deal does not immediately address either the North’s existing nuclear weapons and plutonium stockpile or its suspected uranium-based programme.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney told Japanese leaders during a visit on Wednesday the Beijing pact is a “good first step”. Critics of the Bush administration claim its policies led to the breakdown of the 1994 accord, allowing the North to resume plutonium production.

The Beijing agreement “sounds like the Bush administration has put things back to where they were at the end of the Clinton administration – only now the North Koreans have tested a nuclear weapon and have enough plutonium for seven to 10 nuclear bombs,” said Robert Einhorn, a US weapons expert, recently.—AFP