- BERLIN (Reuters) - North
Korea is deploying new land and sea-based ballistic missiles that can carry
nuclear warheads and may have sufficient range to hit the United States,
according to the authoritative Jane's Defense Weekly.
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- In an article due to appear Wednesday, Jane's said the
two new systems appeared to be based on a decommissioned Soviet submarine-launched
ballistic missile, the R-27. It said communist North Korea had acquired
the know-how during the 1990s from Russian missile specialists and by buying
12 former Soviet submarines which had been sold for scrap metal but retained
key elements of their missile launch systems.
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- Jane's, which did not specify its sources, said the sea-based
missile was potentially the more threatening of the two new weapons systems.
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- "It would fundamentally alter the missile threat
posed by the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and could finally
provide its leadership with something that it has long sought to obtain
- "the ability to directly treaten the continental US," the weekly
said.
-
- Apart from targeting the United States, South Korea or
Japan, cash-strapped North Korea might seek to sell the technology to countries
that have bought its missiles in the past, with Iran a prime candidate,
the article added. Ian Kemp, news editor of Jane's Defense Weekly, said
North Korea would only spend the money and effort on developing such missiles
if it intended to fit them with nuclear warheads.
-
- "It's pretty certain the North Koreans would not
be developing these unless they were intended for weapons of mass destruction
warheads, and the nuclear warhead is far and away the most potent of those,"
he told Reuters.
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- NUCLEAR POTENTIAL UNCLEAR
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- North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty in January 2003 and is locked in long-running crisis talks with
the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea over terms for
scrapping its atomic weapons program.
-
- The extent of that program remains unclear, although
North Korea's deputy foreign minister was quoted as telling a senior U.S.
official last year that Pyongyang possessed nuclear weapons.
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- Jane's said the new land-based system had an estimated
range of 2,500 to 4,000 km (1,560 to 2,500 miles), and the sea-based system,
launchable from a submarine or a ship, had a range of at least 2,500 km.
-
- "If you can get a missile aboard a warship, in particular
aboard a submarine...you can move your submarine to strike at targets such
as Hawaii or the United States, just as examples. Whereas it would be much
more difficult to actually develop a ground-launched missile to achieve
that sort of a range," Kemp said.
-
- Until now only the United States, Russia, Britain, France
and China have been known to possess submarine-launched nuclear weapons,
although there has been speculation that Israel has a similar capability.
-
- Jane's said North Korea appeared to have acquired the
R-27 technology from Russian missile experts based in the Urals city of
Chelyabinsk. It said one such group was detained in 1992 when about to
fly to North Korea, but others visited later.
-
- It said Pyongyang was also helped by the purchase, through
a Japanese trading company, of 12 decommissioned Russian Foxtrot-class
and Golf II-class submarines which were sold for scrap in 1993.
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- It said the missiles and electronic firing systems had
been removed, but the vessels retained their launch tubes and stabilization
sub-systems.
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