North Korea may be preparing nuclear bomb test: report 1 hour, 27 minutes ago
North Korea may be preparing an underground test of a nuclear bomb, ABC News reported on Thursday, but U.S. officials told Reuters they had no new evidence of such a plan.
ABC quoted an unnamed senior military official as saying a U.S. intelligence agency had recently observed "suspicious vehicle movement" at a suspected North Korean test site.
A senior State Department official, who was also not identified, told the network, "It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is a real possibility."
Asked about the report, a senior U.S. official told Reuters: "We have no new evidence to support that." Another official, who also declined to be identified, said there was no indication of a threat in the near term.
South Korean government officials had no comment on the report.
State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos declined any comment on "intelligence-related matters" but said the world needed to remain vigilant in preventing such a test.
"A North Korean nuclear test would be an extremely provocative action that would draw universal condemnation from the international community. We continue to consult with friends and allies," said Gallegos.
ABC reported the activity at the suspected test site included the unloading of large reels of cable outside an underground facility called Pungyee-yok in northeast North Korea.
It said cables can be used in nuclear testing to connect an underground test site to outside observation equipment. The intelligence was brought to the attention of the White House last week, the report said.
Fears about North Korea's nuclear ambitions were heightened when Pyongyang defied international warnings and fired seven missiles into waters east of the Korean peninsula on July 5. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the launches.
North Korea declared itself a nuclear power in February 2005 without testing. Talks on ending its nuclear program among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have been stalled since November.
Daniel Pinkston, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, said North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has bluffed in the past to get U.S. attention.
Last year, activity at suspected North Korean test sites led some analysts to believe the secretive state was preparing to test a nuclear device, but nothing happened.
In 1998, U.S. spy satellites detected a flurry of activity at an underground site at Kumchangri in North Korea designed to hold a plutonium reprocessing reactor.
But Pinkston said that North Korea was "very unhappy" about the U.N. resolution following Pyongyang's July 5 missile tests and might want to show that "under pressure and in an atmosphere of hostility they won't disarm."
"It's much more likely now that Kim would want to have the option (of testing) available," he said by telephone.
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