North Korea defies UN over nuclear arms pact

A DEFIANT North Korea yesterday poured scorn on those urging it not to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and threatened to react if Washington applied new pressures.

Pyongyang's official news agency said Choe Tae Bok, a senior party official, had justified Friday's decision to quit the NPT as a counter to US-led efforts to force open secret military sites. Earlier last week, North Korea put its forces and civilian population on a 'semi-war' footing in response to US-South Korean military manoeuvres.

North Korea has the world's fifth largest armed forces and, if it does not have a first-generation nuclear weapon, it is not far off, according to most experts. It is also pursuing at least three separate ballistic missile programmes, although there are additional problems building a nuclear warhead that will withstand the stresses imposed by the speeds that such weapons achieve.

The North Korean missile programme is a particular threat to South Korea, and Seoul's Defence Minister, Lee Jong Koo, has said that 25 per cent of his budget would be devoted to new anti-air and anti-missile defences and surface-to-surface missiles and the associated command and control.

Some interpret North Korea's withdrawal from the NPT as indicating it has something to hide, and therefore as a back-handed compliment to the efficacy of International Atomic Energy Agency inspection procedures.

Others believe it is a response to the deployment of US forces in exercise Team Spirit, 10 days of manoeuvres which began on 9 March.

Last month the CIA Director, James Woolsey, said there was a 'real possibility' that North Korea had enough nuclear material (20kg) for at least one device and was hiding it from the agency.

Martin Navias, a specialist at King's College London, on the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to the Third World, said: 'If they don't have it they're very close'.

The 30-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon is believed to be able to produce enough plutonium for one nuclear device a year. It is near a plutonium extraction plant, turning Yongbyon into a complete facility with the infrastructure for making nuclear weapons.

Dr Navias said North Korea had three missile programmes: 'Reverse-engineered Scuds', based on Soviet designs and with a slightly longer range - perhaps 320km; upgraded Scuds, with a range of perhaps 550km and the 1,000-km Nodong missile.

Pyongyang's armed forces number 1,132,000, exceeded only by China, Russia, the US and India. South Korea has 633,000 troops and, as the country regarded as being most likely to suffer a 'bolt from the blue' attack, has devoted a lot of attention to anti-missile systems.

Because incoming ballistic missiles travel so fast - at more than five times the speed of sound, or 3,700mph - they are difficult to intercept. But it is hard to make nuclear warheads that will withstand such stresses without disturbing the explosives and the fine balance of materials. Nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles therefore have to be tested, an unattractive proposition for a country developing a few warheads in secret. 'The worst thing you can do is actually fire it and it doesn't go off,' said Dr Navias.