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North Korea Said to Be Readying Nuclear Test Increased Activity at North Korean Nuclear Site Raises Suspicions
(35 minutes later)
JINDO, South Korea — With South Korea preoccupied by a ferry disaster, North Korea has increased activities at its main nuclear test site, prompting Seoul and Washington to prepare for a possible nuclear test from the North, the South Korean Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. JINDO, South Korea — Just days before President Obama is to arrive in South Korea, North Korea has increased activities at its main nuclear test site, raising suspicions in Seoul and Washington that the country may be preparing to conduct a new underground nuclear test, the South Korean Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
The report came as President Obama was nearing the start of a trip later this week to Japan and South Korea, where he was expected to discuss with regional leaders how to deal with the North Korean nuclear threats. Yet the level of activity, at least as visible on commercial satellite photographs of the test site, suggests that the country might not be ready to touch off a new test — which would be its fourth — before Mr. Obama leaves Seoul on Saturday afternoon.
“We have detected various types of activities at Punggye-ri,” a Defense Ministry spokesman, Kim Min-seok, said on Tuesday, referring to the place in northeastern North Korea where the country has conducted three underground nuclear tests since 2006, with the latest occurring in February 2013. “We have to be prepared, but some of the necessary preparations simply aren’t visible yet,” a senior South Korean official said Tuesday evening.
Mr. Kim said the United States and South Korea had heightened their combined surveillance and intelligence-gathering efforts to prepare for a possible nuclear test from the North. The South Korean military activated a special crisis management task force on Monday morning, he said. North Korea’s nuclear program was already expected to be on Mr. Obama’s agenda in his meetings first with Japanese and then South Korean leaders. In recent days there had been some indication that the United States was moving to reduce the conditions the North would have to meet to restart some kind of dialogue over its nuclear program, for the first time in more than two years. The report of increased activity also came as South Korea was preoccupied with a disastrous ferry accident.
South Korea and international analysts have recently said that satellite imagery showed continuing activities at the North’s nuclear test site, but they reported no signs that a test was imminent. The South Korean Defense Ministry had said that a new nuclear test by North Korea was a “political” rather than technical decision, with its engineers ready to conduct one on relatively short notice from its leader, Kim Jong-un. It is possible that North Korea’s leaders are merely trying to rattle South Korea and the United States before Mr. Obama’s arrival in Seoul. American intelligence officials told Congress earlier this year that the North could conduct a test “at any time,” but some of the usual warning signs of an imminent event, such as the presence of large wiring going into the test tunnel to measure the blast, were not visible on the few commercial satellite images, according to an analysis published by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security.
The fact that the South Korean military activated an emergency task force meant that it took the North’s most recent activities more seriously. The national news agency Yonhap quoted an anonymous government official as saying that the North had placed a large screen at the entrance of a tunnel in Punggye-ri, possibly to thwart Western spy satellites watching the site. Still, a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman, Kim Min-seok, said Tuesday that “various types of activities” had been detected at Punggye-ri, referring to the place in northeastern North Korea where the country has conducted underground nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and, most recently, in February 2013. The South Korean military said it activated an emergency task force to monitor the events and prepare for other provocations, but that seemed to be motivated in part by an abundance of caution and in part, one South Korean official said, “to make it clear that we would be ready to respond.”
Similar activities were reported ahead of the test in February last year, but the North Korean regime is also known for staging such activities to draw international attention and force Washington and Seoul to engage it with dialogue and grant it concessions. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said officials were closely watching the situation, but he would not speculate about how the United States would respond should North Korea go ahead with a test. “I would note that there is a kind of cyclical nature to the provocative actions that North Korea tends to take,” he said.
The official told Yonhap that vehicle activities also sharply increased in Punggye-ri, probably to bring equipment for communications and for recording seismic waves. But the final signs of an imminent test — such as sealing a tunnel with concrete or soil — were not detected, the official said. South Korea is heavily dependent on American satellite monitoring of the sites. The national news agency Yonhap quoted an anonymous government official as saying that the North had placed a large screen at the entrance of a tunnel in Punggye-ri, likely to thwart Western spy satellites. There was no evidence yet, Yonhap reported, of moves to seal entrances to the tunnels, a major step to contain the leakage of radioactivity.
But the timing, officials say, would depend on a political calculation by Kim Jong-un, the country’s young leader, whose unpredictability has become one of the hallmarks of the North’s tactical steps.
“North Korea wants attention ahead of Obama’s visit,” said Lee Byong-chul, senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul.“North Korea wants attention ahead of Obama’s visit,” said Lee Byong-chul, senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul.
Six-nation talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program collapsed in 2009. Recent efforts to revive them have stalled over differences between Washington and Pyongyang over what actions the North needed to take before such negotiations could resume. It is not clear how much advantage, if any, Mr. Kim could get from such a test, American officials say. He has already demonstrated the ability to set off a crude nuclear device. But recently North Korea’s official news media suggested something different was coming. That has prompted speculation that the North could demonstrate that it could develop a bomb from highly enriched uranium, which it is beginning to produce in quantity to supplement its original source of nuclear material, plutonium. It could also conduct multiple tests, as Pakistan did in 1998. Or it could claim to have developed a smaller nuclear weapon that it could fit atop a missile, though demonstrating that to the world would be difficult.
Mr. Lee said another nuclear test by North Korea “would add fuel to the fire” among South Koreans who were already troubled by the ferry disaster.Mr. Lee said another nuclear test by North Korea “would add fuel to the fire” among South Koreans who were already troubled by the ferry disaster.
In waters off Jindo Island, near the southwestern corner of South Korea, divers were continuing their grim efforts to enter an overturned and submerged ferry to bring out bodies. The ship tilted and sank on Wednesday with 476 people on board. Officials counted 174 survivors and 104 deaths. Nearly 200 remained missing, making the incident one of the worst disasters in South Korean history. Fears of a fourth nuclear test by the North have increased since late last month, when it threatened to carry out a “new form” of nuclear test. Washington and its allies have warned that another test by the North would lead to more international sanctions. North Korea is already under heavy sanctions for its previous tests of nuclear devices and long-range missile technology.
Fears of a fourth nuclear test by the North have increased since late last month, when North Korea threatened to carry out a “new form” of nuclear test. Washington and its allies have warned that another nuclear test by the North would only bring more international sanctions against the country. North Korea is already under heavy sanctions for its previous tests of nuclear devices and long-range missile technology. Washington and its allies have long suspected North Korea of trying to make nuclear devices small and sophisticated enough to be delivered by the intercontinental ballistic missiles it has also been developing. It remains unclear how close the North has come to that goal, although it claimed after its last nuclear test that it had “diversified” and “miniaturized” its weapons.
Washington and its allies have long suspected North Korea of trying to make nuclear devices small and sophisticated enough to be delivered by the intercontinental ballistic missiles it was also developing. It remained unclear how close the North had come to that goal, although it claimed after its last nuclear test that it had “diversified” and “miniaturized” its nuclear weapons. After the test last year, relations on the divided Korean Peninsula plunged to their chilliest in years, with the North and the South trading threats of attacks. The tensions eased in the second half of the year. But they rose again starting in February, when the United States and South Korea conducted their annual joint military drills and North Korea launched a series of short- and midrange missile tests off its east coast.
Following the test in February last year, relations on the divided Korean Peninsula plunged to their chilliest in years, with the North and the South trading threats of attack. The tensions eased in the second half of last year. But they rose again starting in February of this year, when the United States and South Korea conducted their annual joint military drills and North Korea test-launched a series of short- and midrange missiles off its east coast.
North Korea is believed to have used some of its small stockpile of plutonium in its first two tests in 2006 and 2009. The North had produced plutonium from spent fuel from its once-mothballed nuclear reactor, which the North is believed to have recently restarted.North Korea is believed to have used some of its small stockpile of plutonium in its first two tests in 2006 and 2009. The North had produced plutonium from spent fuel from its once-mothballed nuclear reactor, which the North is believed to have recently restarted.
North Korea is also running a uranium enrichment program, first unveiled in 2010, that officials and analysts in the region fear will provide the country with a steady supply of fuel for nuclear tests and bombs. After the North’s last underground nuclear test in February last year, analysts could not determine whether the North used highly enriched uranium for fuel. They said that by the “new form of nuclear test,” North Korea may mean a test of a uranium bomb. North Korea is also running a uranium enrichment program that officials and analysts in the region fear will provide the country with a steady supply of fuel for nuclear tests and bombs.