'North Korean nukes, ICBMs threat to US'
BEIJING: North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles poses a direct threat to the US, defense secretary Robert Gates said, a blunt assessment of the risk posed by an erratic dictatorship that considers the US its foremost enemy.
North Korea will have a limited ability to deliver a weapon to US shores within five years using intercontinental ballistic missiles, Gates predicted. North Korea has threatened to test such missiles, and has already conducted underground nuclear tests that prove it has manufactured at least rudimentary nuclear weapons.
"With the North Koreans' continuing development of nuclear weapons and their development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, North Korea is becoming direct threat to the US, and we have to take that into account,'' Gates said.
The risk of war on the Korean Peninsula is also rising because South Koreans are fed up with provocation and harassment from the North, Gates said. North Korea is accused of sinking a South Korean Navy ship last spring, killing 46 sailors, and it fired artillery at a disputed island in November, killing four South Koreans.
The South's "tolerance for not responding'' is nearly gone, Gates told reporters in China, which is North Korea's only ally.
North Korea will have a limited ability to deliver a weapon to US shores within five years using intercontinental ballistic missiles, Gates predicted. North Korea has threatened to test such missiles, and has already conducted underground nuclear tests that prove it has manufactured at least rudimentary nuclear weapons.
"With the North Koreans' continuing development of nuclear weapons and their development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, North Korea is becoming direct threat to the US, and we have to take that into account,'' Gates said.
The risk of war on the Korean Peninsula is also rising because South Koreans are fed up with provocation and harassment from the North, Gates said. North Korea is accused of sinking a South Korean Navy ship last spring, killing 46 sailors, and it fired artillery at a disputed island in November, killing four South Koreans.
The South's "tolerance for not responding'' is nearly gone, Gates told reporters in China, which is North Korea's only ally.
Comments