North Korea may conduct 3rd nuclear test if talks remain stalled

Mainichi Shimbun ^ | 10/07/11

[TigerLikesRooster]

North Korea may conduct 3rd nuclear test if talks remain stalled

SEOUL (Kyodo) -- North Korea might conduct a third nuclear test or again test-launch a long-range missile if the six-party talks on its denuclearization are not resumed, a senior South Korean presidential aide told a security forum Friday.

"I think that North Korea could test-launch a long-range missile or conduct a third nuclear test if denuclearization talks with South Korea and the U.S. fail," Kim Tae Hyo, deputy national security advisor to President Lee Myung Bak, was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.

North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing a storm of international condemnation and sanctions.

Kim's remarks came after top presidential aide Chun Yung Woo told the same forum earlier in the day that North Korea must accept preconditions, including a shutdown of its uranium enrichment program, before the stalled six-party talks on can take place

[TigerLikesRooster]

S. Korean media reports that recent articles on Rodong Shinmun, party's official paper, suddenly talks about the need to continue their 'space program' again, which observers interpret as paving the way to the test launch of another long-range missile.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Nuke or ICBM test, we get certainly one of them, and possibly both within a year. The timing depends on how slow we are groveling to them.

[BobL]

Personally, I’d like to see them launch a missile that gives Hawaii a slight taste of what an EMP is (not huge damage, just enough to get their attention).

At that point, the country might just WAKE UP and realize that we’re not anymore in a 2-country world, where it’s just us and Russia, and if we disarm together, everything will be bliss.

[TigerLikesRooster]

I can imagine a situation where their test rocket develops trouble with its guidance system and stray off course, hitting Hawaii or Alaska inland near some town, causing some property damage. A kind of unintended ‘lucky shot.’ I don't think N. Korean regime would celebrate this behind the scene, even though they are making public propaganda mileage from this. N. Korea always does enough to make its enemy take flight instead of fight. If they calculate wrong and the enemy bring fight to them, they failed to achieve the desired result.. They don't want be all-in unless they are 100% sure of their odds. Of course, if they are truly on the verge of collapse, that would be different.

[TSgt]

Another nuclear test? I guess they need more food...

[Jack Hammer]

Too bad the North Korean people can’t eat bullsh*t - they’d all be fat, healthy, and well-filled.