Time Advantage for North Korea in Nuclear Crisis

January 22, 2004

Time might be on North Korea's side if negotiations over its nuclear weapons fall behind, a military experts said in a report that showed that North Korea might be able to expand its weapons-making ability in several years.

The international Institute for Strategic Studies said the scant and incomplete intelligence on North Korea nuclear efforts made it impossible to draw firm conclusions about its weapons capability.

North Korea might have as many as eight nuclear weapons this year, with the capability to produce one weapon a year, the IISS said.

Within the next few years, the communist nation may be able to boost its production capacity to up to 13 new bombs annually, it said.

That worst-case scenario is based on the assumption that North Korea could soon finish building a new reactor and a uranium enrichment plant, the IISS reported.

Under the more likely scenario that it takes several years to complete those facilities, the boost in bomb making capacity would come near the end of the current decade, said John Chipman, the institute's director.

"There is still some time for diplomatic efforts to halt and eliminate North Korea's nuclear arsenal while it remains limited to a handful of nuclear weapons," he said.