April 12, 2013 -- Updated 1321 GMT (2121 HKT)
A Pentagon intelligence assessment suggesting North Korea may have the
ability to deliver a nuclear weapon on a missile has set off a flurry in
Washington. FULL STORY
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EX-NORTH SPY PREDICTS WAR
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U.S. FEARS
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CHINA'S ROLE
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U.S. FEARS
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CHINA'S ROLE
April 12, 2013 -- Updated 1326 GMT (2126 HKT)
A North Korea soldier gestures to
stop photographers from taking photos from a Chinese tour boat as other
soldiers look on along the North Korean bank of the Yalu River near the
town of Sinuiji across the Chinese city of Dandong in Liaoning province,
China, on Saturday, April 6. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has
ordered the country's military to increase artillery production, a
televised report out of Pyongyang showed on Saturday.
HIDE CAPTION
Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Secretary of State Kerry downplays nuclear missile concerns
- NEW: U.S. will talk to North Korea, but Pyongyang has to talk giving up nukes, Kerry says
- Ballistic missiles may be able to carry nukes, a U.S. defense intelligence assessment says
- N. Korea has not fully developed nuclear capabilities mentioned in the report, the Pentagon says
Are you from South or North Korea? Send us your experiences.
(CNN) -- The United States will talk to North Korea,
but only if the country gets serious about negotiating the end of its
nuclear weapons program, Secretary of State John Kerry said after
arriving Friday in Seoul for talks with U.S. ally South Korea.
"North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power," Kerry said.
His trip to South Korea
-- part of an Asian swing that also includes North Korean ally China --
comes a day after a Pentagon intelligence assessment surfaced suggesting
the country may have developed the ability to fire a nuclear-tipped
missile at its foes.
Disclosed first by a
congressman at a hearing Thursday and then confirmed to CNN by the
Defense Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency assessment is the
clearest acknowledgment yet by the United States about potential
advances in North Korea's nuclear program.
CORRECTION
An earlier version of this article and a breaking news e-mail alert incorrectly stated the committee Rep. Doug Lamborn was addressing. It was the House Armed Services Committee.
An earlier version of this article and a breaking news e-mail alert incorrectly stated the committee Rep. Doug Lamborn was addressing. It was the House Armed Services Committee.
Despite weeks of
bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang threatening nuclear attacks on the
United States, South Korea and their allies, U.S. officials have
characterized the North's saber rattling as largely bluster.
U.S. officials think
North Korea could test-launch a mobile ballistic missile at any time in
what would be seen by the international community as a highly
provocative move.
But a senior administration official said there's no indication that those missiles have been armed with nuclear material.
Still, the defense agency
said it has "moderate confidence" that North Korea could fit a nuclear
weapon on a ballistic missile and fire it. But agency analysts think
such a missile's reliability would be low -- an apparent reference to
its accuracy.
Kerry said Friday it
would be inaccurate to suggest that North Korea, which has conducted
three underground nuclear weapons tests since 2006, can launch a
nuclear-armed missile, despite the DIA assessment.
Diplomatic push in Korean Peninsula
Lamborn explains missile comments
Declassification mistake, intel revealed
Intel: N. Korea could launch nuke attack
"But obviously they have
conducted a nuclear test, so there's some kind of device, but that is
very different from miniaturization and delivery and from tested
delivery and other things," he said.
He said any launch by North Korea would be a "huge mistake."
"If Kim Jong Un decides
to launch a missile, whether it's across the Sea of Japan or in some
other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire
international community, his own obligations that he has accepted, and
it will be a provocative and unwanted act that will raise people's
temperature with respect to this issue," Kerry said.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, speaking with Kerry at Friday's news conference, urged North Korea to open talks.
"We urge North Korea to
cease its reckless behavior and to stop issuing threats," he said.
"Instead, we urge North Korea to respond to our call for building trust
on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue, and now it is time for North
Korea to make that choice."
After South Korea, Kerry
will visit China, where he will tell leaders there that Pyongyang, as
one senior administration official said, is "putting China's own
interests at risk."
Washington wants Beijing
to "stop the money trail into North Korea" and to carry a strong
message to the North that getting rid of nuclear weapons on the Korean
Peninsula is China's goal, said the official and a senior State
Department official.
Defense Intelligence Agency report
The surprising Defense
Intelligence Agency assessment of North Korea's potential nuclear
capabilities emerged during Thursday's House Armed Services Committee
hearing.
At the hearing, Rep.
Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, read from a declassified version of the
document in which the DIA expresses "moderate confidence the North
currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles,
however, the reliability will be low."
As Kerry did Friday, top officials in Washington tried Thursday to downplay concerns about the report.
Pentagon spokesman
George Little said that "it would be inaccurate to suggest that the
North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the
kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced" in the DIA study.
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That stance was echoed
by James R. Clapper, director of U.S. national intelligence, who said:
"North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities
necessary for a nuclear-armed missile."
U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the agency has no independent
information to verify the DIA's assessment.
The DIA has been wrong
in the past, producing an assessment in 2002 that formed the basis for
arguments that Iraq had nuclear weapons -- a view later found to be incorrect.
Confusion over intel's release
The report was
"mistakenly" marked as declassified, according to an administration and a
defense source. A House Armed Services Committee aide said staffers
checked with the DIA to confirm that the passage was not classified
before Lamborn read it.
Lamborn told CNN's "AC360" he acted properly in disclosing it during the hearing.
"Given the seriousness of the threat, this is something that I think people do need to know about," he said.
On Friday, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California, also backed disclosure of the assessment.
"I have to believe they
know what they're doing," said McKeon, chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee. "I think it's good for the American people to
understand how tenuous this situation is and how important it is for us
to have a strong defense."
North Korean missile adjustments
On Thursday, North Korea
briefly raised a missile into an upright firing position, stoking
concerns that a launch was imminent, a U.S. official told CNN. Later,
another U.S. official said it had been tucked back into its launcher.
The latest move by the
North could signify that a much-feared launch is less imminent. It could
also mean the government was testing the equipment.
The first U.S. official
cautioned that raising the untested Musudan missile, which South Korea
says has a range of up to 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers), could have
been just a trial run or an effort to "mess" with the United States and
its allies.
The Musudan could reach
Guam, a Western Pacific territory that is home to U.S. naval and air
bases, and where the United States recently said it was placing missile
defense systems.
The United States and
South Korean militaries have been monitoring the movements of mobile
ballistic missiles on the east coast of North Korea. Japan has deployed
defense systems.
Clapper, the national
intelligence director, said Thursday at a House Intelligence Committee
hearing that he didn't think Kim had "much of an endgame" other than to
get recognition from the world as a nuclear power, which "entitles him
to negotiation, accommodation and, presumably, aid."
He reiterated that the
nation's "nuclear weapons and missile programs pose a serious threat to
the United States and to the security environment in East Asia."
More threats
On Friday, North Korea
issued a scathing warning to Tokyo, saying in the official KCNA news
agency that Japan should "stop recklessly working for staging a comeback
on Korea, depending on its American master."
Japanese foreign minister spokesman Masaru Sato said such remarks only hurt North Korea.
"Japan would not be pushed around by rhetoric of North Korea," he said.
North Korea began to
sharpen its threats in February, after the United Nations reacted to the
country's third nuclear test with tougher sanctions. Annual military
exercises involving U.S. and South Korean troops have added to the
tensions.
At the Thursday House
Intelligence Committee hearing, Clapper said the United States believed
the primary objective of Kim's bellicose rhetoric was to "consolidate
and affirm his power."
Earlier in the crisis, the United States drew attention to shows of strength, such as practice missions by B-2 stealth bombers.
Kerry said Friday that
U.S. officials were working to calm the crisis, noting President Barack
Obama had canceled some of the exercises.
"I think we have lowered our rhetoric significantly," Kerry said.
CNN's K.J. Kwon, Tim Schwarz, Kyung Lah,
Deirdre Walsh, Judy Kwon, Matt Smith, Kevin Bohn, Chris Lawrence, Elise
Labott, Jill Dougherty, Adam Levine and Jim Kavanagh contributed to this
report.
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