North Korea is working to perfect its state
nuclear force and its recent acts, including the successful intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch and hydrogen bomb detonation, with
provocative signals like more such “gift packages” are in the pipeline and the assertion
that it is planning to strike the US military base in Guam suggest that it is successfully
moving ahead in that direction.
That appears to be the case according to a
release by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). According to a KCNA release available on North Korean media aggregators,
North Korea is working to perfect its state nuclear force the blueprint was
laid down during the Seventh Congress of the Worker’s Party of Korea in May
2016. The WPK Congress had decided to advance its strategic targets and had
vowed to work hard to build its nuclear force. The warning signals from North
Korea was largely ignored by major world powers then.
On September 3, North Korea
carried out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test yet when it claimed to successfully
detonate a hydrogen bomb. Like it had done with its first ever successful ICBM
test launch last month, the country felicitated the scientists involved in the
operation and organized public event to celebrate its success.
According to the KCNA release, "the
scientists visited the statues of former North Korean presidents Kim Il Sung
and leader Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill to make a report about their success and
vowed to successfully conclude their research and development campaign to
attain the final-phase goals for perfecting the state nuclear force advanced at
the Seventh Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea."
Currently, there are eight countries in the
world possessing nuclear weapons. Five of them, US, Russia, UK, France and China,
are nuclear weapon states who have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty
NPT. Three other countries, India, Pakistan and North Korea, who are non-NPT
signatories, have declared themselves as nuclear powers. Israel is also
considered a nuclear power though it has never publicly accepted it.
But only four out of these eight declared
nuclear powers, US, UK, Russia and France, have deployed strategic nuclear
warheads on ICBMs and at heavy bomber bases, an analysis from the Federation of
American Scientists published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says.
And North Korea's provocations say it might go
on to become the fifth country of the nuclear bloc to strategically deploy
nuclear warheads with its repeated threats to target US territories.
Barring Pakistan and North Korea, all other
nuclear powers are responsible countries. China, the only major ally of North
Korea, even has no deployed strategic warheads the FAS analysis says. Pakistan
is under heavy international scrutiny and pressure for its nuclear programme. Also,
it is widely believed that North Korea got nuclear technology from Pakistan.
©SantoshChaubey
