South Korea says North may be close to nuclear test

SEOUL: North Korea could well be preparing to carry out a fourth nuclear test, South Korea said yesterday, citing increased activity at its main test site just days ahead of a visit to Seoul by US President Barack Obama.

“Our military is currently detecting a lot of activity in and around the Punggye-ri nuclear test site,” defence ministry spokesman Kim Min- Seok told a press briefing.

Kim stressed that North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme was at a stage where it could conduct a test ‘at any moment’ once the order was given by the leadership in Pyongyang.

North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests — in 2006, 2009 and 2013 — all at the Punggyeri site in the northeast of the country.

Kim declined to give details of the monitored activity, but cautioned that it may be no more than a ‘deception tactic’ to raise tensions ahead of Obama’s visit which is due to begin on Friday.

“We are thinking of possibilities that the North may stage a surprise nuclear test or just pretend to stage a nuclear test,” Kim said.

Obama is visiting Seoul as part of an Asia tour, and there has been widespread speculation that the North may stage a provocation to coincide with the trip.

Kim said the South Korean and US militaries were closely sharing intelligence and Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff had set up a special task force in case Pyongyang goes ahead with an underground detonation.

On Monday, Pyongyang slammed Obama’s upcoming trip as a ‘dangerous’ move that would escalate military tension and bring the ‘dark clouds of a nuclear arms race’ over the Korean peninsula.

Several analysts said they were sceptical that North Korea would carry out a test at the current time, and said Pyongyang was just seeking to rattle a few cages.

Professor Yang Moo- Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said a test now would risk permanently alienating the North’s only major ally and chief economic benefactor, China.

“It would be a huge slap in the face for China and North Korea may not feel confident enough to deal with the backlash from Beijing,” Yang said.

A nuclear test would extinguish any chance of a resumption of six-country talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme that China has been pushing for.

Other parties to the stalled discussions — most notably a sceptical South Korea and the US — insist Pyongyang must first make a tangible step towards denuclearisation.

“The diplomatic backlash from another nuclear test might be hard for the North to cope with,” agreed Kim Yong-Hyun, a North Korean expert at DongGuk University.

“I think this is more likely

Our military is currently detecting a lot of activity in and around the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. Kim Min-Seok, defence ministry spokesman

North Korea posturing to get some international attention,” Kim said.

In a March 21 post based on recent satellite images of Punggyeri, the closely- followed 38 North website of the Johns Hopkins University’s US- Korea Institute said there were no indicators of a new test being conducted ‘in the next few months.’

The North warned at the end of March that it would not rule out a ‘new form’ of nuclear test after the UN Security Council condemned its latest series of medium-range missile launches.

Experts saw this as a possible reference to testing a uraniumbased device or a miniaturised warhead small enough to fit on a ballistic missile.

“If North Korea goes ahead with another nuclear test as it has publicly warned, it will be a game changer,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung- Se said Monday.

Warning Pyongyang that it was playing an ‘ unwinnable game’ against the international community, Yun said the world would not tolerate a nucleararmed North Korea.

Last year, the North restarted a plutonium reactor that it had shut down at its Yongbyon nuclear complex in 2007 under an aid-fordisarmament accord. — AFP