By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
North Korea claimed Wednesday that it has already developed the technology to miniaturize nuclear warheads, just days after leader Kim Jong-un was photographed overseeing the country’s first submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test.
Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon ambitions have been a consistent source of concern for South Korea and the wider international community - but there has been some debate over how close North Korea is to being able to mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.
A South Korean defense ministry white paper asserted earlier this year that the North appeared to have reached “a significant level” of technology that could allow the reclusive state to fire a weapon as far as the United States mainland.
Wednesday’s statement from North Korea’s National Defense Commission - via the state-run KCNA news agency - claimed that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon capabilities were “miniaturized and diversified a long time ago.”
While experts in both South Korea and the U.S. have conceded that the North has made significant technological advances along with its three known nuclear tests, some doubt whether there was even a SLBM test this month.
Vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James A. Winnefeld Jr., suggested on Tuesday Washington time that the North is “many years away” from posing a nuclear submarine threat.
“We saw Pyongyang raving about a test of its submarine-launched ballistic missile capability. Fortunately, they've not gone as far as their clever video editors and spinmeisters would have us believe," Winnefeld said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.
But in response a Seoul defense ministry official was also quoted as saying that “South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities agree that North Korea succeeded in the shoot-out test of the SLBM itself.”
Pyongyang is barred from developing ballistic missile technology under United Nations Security Council resolutions.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had been set to visit the North on Thursday, before announcing that Pyongyang cancelled the trip on Wednesday morning.
