Experts say Kim could go ballistic'

Seoul: North Korea has been working through 2016 on developing components for an intercontinental ballistic missile making the isolated nation’s claim that it was close to a test-launch plausible, international weapons experts said on Monday.

North Korea has been testing rocket engines and heat-shields while developing the technology to guide a missile after re-entry into the atmosphere after a lift-off, the experts said.

While Pyongyang is close to a test, it is likely to take some years to perfect the weapon. Once fully developed, a North Korean ICBM could threaten the US, which is around 9,000 km from the North. ICBMs have a minimum range of 5,500 km, but some are designed to travel  further.

North Korea regularly threatens the US with a nuclear strike, but before 2016, Pyongyang had been assumed to be a long way from being able to do so.

“The bottom line is Pyongyang is much further along in their missile development than most people realise,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California. She said the North’s test in April of a liquid-fuel engine that could propel an ICBM was a major development.

North Korea said it could mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile. But its claims to be able to miniaturise a nuclear device have never been verified.

The South Korean defence ministry believes the Kwangmyongsong rocket used by Pyongyang to put a satellite in space last February has a potential range of 12,000 km, if re-engineered. Doing so would require safer “cold-launch” technology, and perfecting the ability of a rocket to re-enter the atmosphere. “North is working hard to develop cold-launch technology and atmospheric re-entry but South and the US will have to assess exactly which level of development they have reached,” South Korean defense ministry official Roh Jae-cheon said.