North Korea Tests Two Missiles

Communist Regime Sends Reminder Of Ability To Cause Instability

(AP) 
Pyongyang recently has pursued diplomacy to resolve its nuclear standoff, sending a top diplomat to New York for a briefing Tuesday by U.S. officials on the country's alleged illicit financial activities.

The U.S. last year blacklisted a Macau bank and North Korean companies it said were involved in counterfeiting, money laundering and weapons proliferation — a move that prompted the North to boycott international arms talks. After the New York briefing, the North maintained it won't return to disarmament negotiations but said it has proposed ways to resolve the issue.

"At a time when North Korea is trying to play the diplomatic card, it wouldn't necessarily make sense for them to try and pull out the military card as well," said Jon Wolfstahl, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The commander of the U.S. military in South Korea, Army Gen. B.B. Bell, said Tuesday in Washington that reports indicated the North was "preparing to field a new intermediate-range ballistic missile which could easily reach United States facilities in Okinawa, Guam and possibly Alaska," according to prepared comments.

However, Bell noted the North Koreans had done "very little" in recent years on long-range ballistic missiles. Instead, he said officials have seen increasing work on short-range missiles that could be used on the Korean Peninsula.

Besides producing a large number of weapons, Bell said North Korea also "appears willing to sell to anyone."

It isn't known if the North has built a functioning nuclear weapon as it claims, since the country isn't believed to have performed any nuclear tests. Putting a device on a missile is even more complicated, and there's no evidence the North has done that either.

Still, experts believe the North has extracted enough plutonium from its main nuclear reactor for at least a half-dozen nuclear weapons or more — a concern that has lately been getting less attention due to the intense diplomacy surrounding the Iranian nuclear crisis.

"We're getting 24-7 coverage on Iran — which is still likely several years away from being able to produce a single nuclear weapon — and little coverage on North Korea, which any day could shut down its nuclear reactor and obtain the plutonium for what could be its 10th, 11th or 12th nuclear weapon," Wolfstahl said.