www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7452415
MORE SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea appears to have bought a complete nuclear w eapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korea n newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington. Seoul Shinmun quoted the source as saying the United States was checking the intelligence. The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing tha t could be detected from the outside, the source was quoted as saying. North Korea is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons and possibly m ore than eight. US Congressman Curt Weldon said after a visit to the North this month t hat its second-ranked leader had told his delegation that it possessed n uclear weapons. Pyongyang has declared that a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, sealed under a 1994 agreement with the United States, had been restarted. Spent nuclea r fuel from that reactor could be converted to weapons-grade material. North Korea has never officially declared that it possessed atomic weapon s, speaking instead of its "nuclear deterrent." US experts who visited the Yongbyon facility said spent plutonium previ ously stored there had been removed. North Korea is suspected of running a separate program based on uranium e nrichment technology, assisted by a former top Pakistani nuclear scienti st.
|
http://csua.com/feed/