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New N. Korean Missiles Said to Threaten U.S. Aug 3, 11:41 AM (ET) 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. 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. Jane's,
which did not specify its sources, said the sea-based missile was potentially
the more threatening of the two new weapons systems. "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 threaten
the continental U.S.," 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. NUCLEAR
POTENTIAL UNCLEAR 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. 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. It said the missiles
and electronic firing systems had been removed, but the vessels retained their
launch tubes and stabilization sub-systems. |