GENEVA:
North Korea is only months away
from obtaining the capability to hit US territory
with a nuclear weapon and must be disarmed, a US envoy said on Tuesday, dismissing Pyonyang?s diplomatic thaw
with South
Korea as a ?charm offensive? that fooled no one.
In a diplomatic showdown at UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament,
North Korea responded by blaming Washington for escalating confrontation, saying it was deploying nuclear assets including aircraft carriers near the divided peninsula and was considering a pre-emptive strike against Pyongyang.
?North
Korea has accelerated its provocative pursuit of nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, and expressed explicit threats to use nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies in the region,? US disarmament ambassador Robert Wood told the Geneva forum. ?North Korean officials insist that they will not give up nuclear weapons, and
North Korea may now be only months away
from the capability to strike the United States
with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles,? he said.
A new US nuclear policy review outlined last week ?reaffirms that
North Korea?s illicit nuclear program must be completely, verifiably, and irreversibly eliminated, resulting in a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons,? he said.
Asked later what the basis was for the assessment that
North Korea would soon be able to hit the United States
with a nuclear weapon, he said he had ?no new information to share?.North
Korea tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-14, twice last July. In November it tested the Hwasong-15, believed to be capable of reaching the continental United States.
It is not yet believed to have the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.
North Korea is under tightening UN Security Council sanctions for its banned nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.But recent weeks have seen a thaw
with South Korea, after Pyongyang agreed to send athletes to compete in the Olympic Games opening on Feb. 9 in the south.
?What I would call ?the charm offensive? frankly is fooling no one,? Wood told the talks. He also said arsenals in China and Russia were expanding, drawing rebukes
from their respective delegations.?Russia, China and
North Korea are growing their stockpiles, increasing the prominence of nuclear weapons in their security strategies, and - in some cases - pursuing the development of new nuclear capabilities to threaten other peaceful nations,? Wood said.
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