North Korea ‘More or Less Ready’ for Nuclear Weapon Test

North Korea appears to be able now to conduct a nuclear test, a Chinese official said today, but could be persuaded to delay detonation with concessions from the United States (see GSN, Oct. 5).

“They are more or less ready,” the official told Reuters.

He did not say when the test might occur, but said it would happen 2,000 meters inside a coal mine.

While North Korea could conduct the test in one of thousands of mine shafts, South Korean newspapers reported that three or four sites were being monitored closely by nearby countries. 

One likely site, according to the Hankook Ilbo newspaper, is in the North Hamkyung province.  ABC News in August reported that a U.S. intelligence agency had detected suspicious activity at the site (see GSN, Aug. 18).

The newspaper identified several other potential test sites, Reuters reported.

“Finding the test site beforehand would be akin to finding a needle in the Han River,” the newspaper said.

Pyongyang “may not necessarily test” if the United States can be persuaded to eliminate sanctions and begin direct talks, the Chinese official said (Lim/Buckley, Reuters, Oct. 6).

North Korea is more likely to conduct an underground test than an atmospheric detonation, in order to avoid spreading radiation and potentially giving away details of its nuclear device, Agence France-Presse reported.

“The current thinking is that they have a horizontal tunnel in the side of a hill,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

“If you have a lot of venting, you give technical intelligence to enemies as to how it works,” he said.  “You want to have many hundreds of feet of rock above you and you might have to tunnel in over 1,000 feet to get that rock above you” (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse I, Oct. 6).

The U.N. Security Council was expected today to approve a joint statement urging North Korea not to conduct the test, AFP reported.

A Japanese official, following talks in Washington, expressed doubt about the international community’s ability to stop Pyongyang.

“We discussed the possibility that the test could occur this weekend,” said Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi.

“They will probably go ahead and do it as they had that tone in their declaration.  It possibly means they are already very prepared,” he added.

The Security Council statement would “urge the D.P.R.K. not to undertake such a test and to refrain from any action that might aggravate tension.”  It would also push Pyongyang “to return immediately to the six-party talks without precondition and work toward the expeditious implementation” of the September 2005 deal, in which North Korea agreed in principle to give up its nuclear weapons program in return for energy and security incentives.

The statement is not likely to contain the threat of sanctions under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, AFP reported.  Japan and the United States had pushed for such language.  “I do not think at this stage it is something all members can agree on,” said Kenzo Oshima, current chairman of the Security Council (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Oct. 6).

The White House is preparing new sanctions that it would use against North Korea in the event of a nuclear test, the New York Times reported.

They include pushing China and South Korea to halt energy supplies and trade to North Korea, which the two countries have refused to do in the past, and potentially halting and inspecting cargo ships entering and leaving the country.

“If the test happens, all the arguments are over,” said one senior Bush administration official.  “We’ll end up going to full-scale sanctions; the only debate is what ‘full-scale’ means.”

Most North Korean supplies come though China and Russia, which have resisted talk of sanctions.  “Without leveraging the Chinese to put firm press on, very little can be accomplished by the U.S. through sanctions,” said Asia specialist Kurt Campbell of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

President George W. Bush in the next few days plans to ask Chinese President Hu Jintao to send an envoy to Pyongyang with a warning against a nuclear test, the Times reported.  U.S. officials questioned whether such an initiative would prove successful.

“The last time the Chinese did this after the missile tests (see GSN, July 5) their delegation was left cooling their heels for days,” said one senior official (David Sanger, New York Times, Oct. 6).

U.S. military action is not likely to be on the menu following a nuclear test, AFP reported.

The United States does not know where Pyongyang houses its plutonium or uranium enrichment technology, said Robert Einhorn, a former secretary of state for nonproliferation.

“What would we attack?” he said.  “We don’t have a clue where it is.”

There are also significant dangers to an air strike against North Korea, one expert said.  Pyongyang could use artillery and chemical munitions against Seoul.  The chance exists also that North Korea has missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, they said.

“North Korea may well have nuclear warheads on tops of missiles today,” said RAND Corp. North Korea expert Bruce Bennett.  “And if we go and start attacking … nuclear facilities that they are producing plutonium at, they may well decide that their best response is to launch a nuclear missile at Seoul or Tokyo or someplace like that” (Jim Mannion, Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, Oct. 50.

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