N. Korea says it will conduct nuclear test

SEOUL, Oct. 3 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Tuesday it will conduct a nuclear test in the future, claiming it is compelled to do so due to U.S. hostility.

"Firstly, the field of scientific research of the DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed," a spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the country's Korean Central News Agency.

The statement did not provide any specific date for a nuclear test. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

"The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering (our) nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense," the statement said.

The announcement comes amid reports of suspicious movement at a suspected nuclear test site in the communist North, suggesting that it may be preparing to conduct an underground test.

Pyongyang declared its possession of nuclear weapons in a Foreign Ministry statement early last year, but has yet to conduct any known tests.

This is the first time for the North to announce plans to conduct a nuclear test, but the ministry spokesman said a test has been on the cards.

"The DPRK officially announced that it manufactured up-to-date nuclear weapons after going through transparent (and) legitimate processes to cope with the U.S. escalated threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure," the statement said.

"The already-declared possession of nuclear weapons presupposes the nuclear test," it added.

The ministry spokesman said his country would not use its nuclear weapons unless it was to defend itself against U.S. hostility.

"The DPRK will never use nuclear weapons first but strictly prohibit any threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear transfer," said the English-language statement.

"The DPRK's nuclear weapons will serve as reliable war deterrent for protecting the supreme interests of the state and the security of the Korean nation from the U.S. threat of aggression and averting a new war and firmly safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula under any circumstances," it said.

The North Korean official also claimed his country will act as a "responsible" nuclear state, saying it "will always sincerely implement its international commitment in the field of nuclear non-proliferation." South Korea and the United States have been working to come up with a "common and broad" approach to bringing the North back to international negotiations aimed at peacefully resolving the dispute over its nuclear ambitions.

Pyongyang agreed to give up its nuclear ambitions during a fourth round of nuclear disarmament talks last September, but has been staying away from the negotiations since November, citing the U.S.'s hostile attitude.

"Under the present situation in which the U.S. moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK have reached the worst phase, going beyond the extremity, the DPRK can no longer remain an on-looker to the developments," the North's foreign ministry spokesman said.

The spokesman, however, also hinted at his country's return to the nuclear talks, saying the "ultimate" goal is to eliminate all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.

"The DPRK will do its utmost to realize the denuclearization of the Peninsula and give impetus to the world-wide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons," the statement said.

"There is no change in the principled stand of the DPRK to materialize the denuclearization of the Peninsula through dialogue and negotiation," it said.

The nuclear negotiations are attended by the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States.

Timing is everything in propaganda and public relations - but there I repeat myself - and Kim's isn't especially good. At this point a successful test is more likely to result in a collective "how about that? The little creep finally managed to make one go off" than a collective gasp of horror.

At least as far as the U.S. goes, that is. Japan and South Korea won't be laughing. Those are both high-technology industrial states with enough disposable income and know-how to construct their own weapons in weeks or months at the outside, if in fact they haven't already done so. They'd be fools not to. The same might be said for Iran's neighbors.

Essentially the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a dead duck and has been for some time. It is an odd notion of international relations that posits a "right" to possess weapons intended to blow one's neighbors to smithereens but that is one upshot of the overlaying of multicultural mores onto international diplomacy. But in practice non-proliferation always did depend on the good intentions of the signators and a preference for the economic rewards of compliance. North Korea is a chilling example of what happens in the absence of these economic rewards, stretched over decades. Iran feels that it can avoid this by simply trading with the West anyway and the French have given them good reason to believe that they'll get away with it. And that's really all that's needed to kill the NPT.

And so we're again going to have to ramp up production of our own nukes and even more important, the anti-missile technology that diplomacy was supposedly going to make unnecessary. Plowshares into swords. "The other was only a maiden aunt's fancy." (Robert Heinlein)

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