Global Security Newswire

A U.S. expert on Friday said North Korea has strong technical motives to conduct another nuclear test as a means to boost confidence in its ability to wield a credible missile-based deterrent, Reuters reported (see GSN, Sept. 12).

The Stalinist state has conducted two underground nuclear trial blasts to date, with the 2009 test seen as more successful than the first try in 2006. The North, though, has yet to demonstrate it has developed a reliable nuclear warhead that could be attached to a missile. The aspiring nuclear power is understood to hold enough processed plutonium to fuel at least six warheads.

Former Los Alamos National Laboratory chief Siegfried Hecker, who last November was given access to North Korea's new uranium enrichment plant, said he thought Pyongyang had the ability to construct a "relatively simple, rudimentary plutonium bomb."

However, "I don't believe they could have confidence on the basis of those tests to make one small enough to mount on a missile," Hecker said to an audience of diplomats in Vienna, Austria.

"So if they want ... to have the confidence that they had one they can mount on a missile, if they want to convince the rest of the world, they would need at least one other nuclear test," the Stanford University scientist said.

U.S. surveillance satellites last October reportedly picked up signs of heightened operations around the site of North Korea's previous nuclear test, which could mean work is under way for a new attempt.

While the anticipated reaction of the international community, particularly China, and a finite amount of suitable nuclear material might keep North Korea from carrying out a third nuclear test, "in my opinion there is still a very good possibility that, under what they would consider the right political circumstances, they may do another nuclear test," Hecker said.

"Certainly, technically I would think that that is what they would want to do," he added (Fredrik Dahl, Reuters I, Sept. 9).

"The second test [in 2009] was a necessity because the first one didn't work well," the Associated Press quoted Hecker as saying.

The International Atomic Energy Agency in a recent document said the uranium enrichment plant viewed by Hecker at the Yongbyon nuclear complex held roughly 2,000 centrifuges. Pyongyang claims the centrifuges are only enriching uranium to low levels to provide fuel for eventual atomic energy production.

Hecker, though, said with some rearrangement of machinery, the plant could produce on an annual basis as much as 88 pounds of weapon-ready fissile material -- adequate for fueling two nuclear warheads.

The Stalinist state's uranium work is "not a big problem" so long as the uranium enrichment plant at Yongbyon is the only such facility, Hecker said, though he voiced doubts that that was the case.

In the event the North is producing significant quantities of enriched uranium "it becomes a problem, especially in terms of export," Hecker said. As Pyongyang is already involved in nuclear technology proliferation it would be exceedingly difficult to block fissile material sales, he said (George Jahn, Associated Press/Google News , Sept. 10).

"My conclusion of the North Korean nuclear program is, yes, they have a bomb, but not much of a nuclear arsenal," Hecker, who has traveled to North Korea on seven occasions since 2004, said in the Reuters article.

Hecker indicated that the leading danger of North Korea's nuclear work is that it could be exported to other nations. Heightened international sanctions have already cut off Pyongyang's access to most international markets, leaving it to earn revenue through illegal activities.

A 2010 U.N. report indicated Iran, Myanmar and Syria have all illicitly received nuclear technology from North Korea.

"The world knows that North Korea did a lot of exporting of missile technology," Hecker said. "Now it appears that North Korea has also gone into the nuclear export business. That to me is the most immediate threat, needs to be stopped now."

"The Iran-North Korea axis is my greatest concern for the exchange of nuclear technologies because they complement each other so well. There is just a lot of synergy in how they would be able to exchange capabilities," he said (Dahl, Reuters I).

Separately, Russia and North Korea are slated to conduct their first bilateral military exercise in 2011, a Japanese newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The drill would be conducted with the aim of countering the regional influence of the trilateral alliance of Japan, South Korea and the United States, Reuters reported.

Russian and North Korean naval and air force assets would jointly drill in maritime rescue scenarios, an informed insider told the Asahi Shimbun.

Seoul and Tokyo are expected to monitor the drill, which is not anticipated to employ any weapons (Reuters II/Jerusalem Post, Sept. 13).