N. Korea Military Meeting Hints at Nuclear Test
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has chaired a high-level meeting that discussed a looming "great turn" in military capability, state media said Sunday, fueling expectations of an imminent nuclear test.
Kim made a "historic" speech at the ruling party's Central Military Commission meeting, attended by the heads of the army, the National Defense Commission and the strategic rocket force, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
The meeting discussed "bringing about a great turn in bolstering military capability", said KCNA, which gave no date or details of Kim's speech.
Experts and intelligence sources say the country has completed preparations for a third nuclear test which it threatened in response to tightened U.N. sanctions imposed for a long-range rocket launch last December.
Over the past week Pyongyang has issued a series of daily warnings threatening action over the sanctions, including a promise Saturday of the "toughest retaliation".
Several observers in South Korea believe the nuclear test will come before Lunar New Year starts on February 10.
In his "important" speech to the military commission, Kim Jong-Un issued specific guidelines for "defending the security and sovereignty of the country", KCNA said.
It did not elaborate but said participants vowed to "thoroughly implement the military tasks set forth".
The North insists its December rocket launch was a purely scientific mission to put a satellite into orbit.
But the U.S. and its allies, including the South, viewed it as a disguised ballistic missile test that violated U.N. resolutions prompted by the North's rocket launches and nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
Recent satellite imagery showed unusually busy activity at the northeastern nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, closely monitored by U.S., South Korean and Japanese intelligence since the test threat.
The North has covered the entrance to a tunnel there in an apparent attempt to block satellite monitoring, the South's Yonhap news agency has said.
On Monday South Korea and its ally the United States will start a joint naval exercise seen largely as a warning to the North.
The three-day drill involving a U.S. nuclear submarine and other warships is expected to be held in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) off the South Korean port city of Pohang.
The North Saturday slammed the drill as "war exercises" aimed at invading the isolated state.
Pyongyang also bestowed a new round of awards and medals on thousands of scientists behind the latest rocket launch, after making more than 100 awards last December.
Source: Agence France Presse
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