NKorea may be developing small nuclear warhead

A top South Korean military officer said Wednesday that he believes North Korea is trying to develop a nuclear warhead that is small enough to be carried by its missiles.

North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium to produce about half a dozen bombs, but it is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to fit a nuclear weapon on a missile. The communist nation conducted an underground nuclear test in 2006, and its long-range missiles may be able to reach as far as the West Coast of the United States.

Gen. Kim Tae-young, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a parliamentary committee that he believes "North Korea has been pushing to develop a small warhead to be mounted on a missile," according to the general's office.

Kim said it was not clear whether the North had already manufactured such a warhead.

South Korea would attack suspected nuclear sites in North Korea if the communist country attempts to use its atomic weapons on the South, Kim said.

"If (the North) tries to use nuclear weapons, we will launch a strike to get them not to use" the weapons, he said.

Kim made similar remarks in March, prompting an angry reaction from Pyongyang. Kim's office later said he was talking about a general military principle in dealing with outside threats, not about a pre-emptive attack on the North.

There was no immediate reaction from North Korea to Kim's comments.

Kim's latest remarks came at a time of increased tension on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea began disabling its main nuclear complex north of Pyongyang last November as part of an aid-for-disarmament pact with the U.S., South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. North Korea, however, stopped the disablement work and began reassembling the facilities in mid-August in protest at Washington's refusal to remove it from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.

The U.S. pledged to remove the North from the blacklist after the regime submitted a long-delayed account of its nuclear programs in June. The U.S. later insisted the North would only be taken off the list after it agreed to an international inspection of its nuclear declaration.

Washington's top nuclear envoy visited Pyongyang last week to resolve the impasse, but it was unclear whether it produced any breakthrough.