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FILE - In this Dec. 12, 2012 image made from video, North Korea's Unha-3 rocket lifts off from the Sohae launching station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. North Korea's top governing body had warned earlier that the regime would conduct its third nuclear test in defiance of U.N. punishment, and made clear that its long-range rockets are designed to carry not only satellites but also warheads aimed at striking the United States.(Photo: Uncredited, AP)
BEIJING — Nuclear experts in China have revealed that North Korea may already have 20 nuclear warheads and could double that arsenal by next year, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The total exceeds current U.S. assessments of the secretive state's nuclear weapons.
The Chinese experts believe North Korea has a greater domestic capacity to enrich uranium than previously thought, Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University nuclear expert and former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, told the Journal.
The Chinese estimates were shared in a closed-door meeting with U.S. nuclear specialists in Beijing this February, said the report. The growing stockpile will complicate international efforts to halt Pyongyang's nuclear program, said Hecker, who attended the February meeting.
"I'm concerned that by 20, they actually have a nuclear arsenal," he said. "The more they believe they have a fully functional nuclear arsenal and deterrent, the more difficult it's going to be to walk them back from that."
U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the revelations cast a shadow on the pending nuclear deal the United States and other world powers are negotiating with Iran to curtail that country's nuclear program. The agreement under discussion would ensure that country's nuclear program remains peaceful. The 1994 agreement between the Clinton administration and North Korea was supposed to stop a North Korean nuclear weapons program.
"We saw how North Korea was able to game this whole process," Royce told the Journal. "I wouldn't be surprised if Iran had its hands on the same playbook."
North Korea has barred inspectors from many of its nuclear sites. Royce said U.S. experts do not know if North Korea has more than one factory developing uranium fuel. In a hearing Wednesday, Royce said verification and inspections of Iranian military sites that the Islamic Republic officials have placed off limits would be a key measure of a successful deal.
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North Korea has defied international pressure and sanctions to conduct three nuclear tests and multiple missile tests. Its reclusive dictator Kim Jong Un is the third generation of the Kim family to rule the impoverished state.
Zhu Feng, a leading Chinese security expert at Peking University, could not confirm the numbers given by the Journal, but agreed North Korea is expanding its nuclear arsenal. "There are a lot of signs indicating North Korea is working very hard on their bomb-making and it is quite likely their warheads and bombs are increasing," Zhu said.
Despite pressure from ally Beijing to rein in its nuclear program, Pyongyang sees these weapons as a "shield" to hide from tightening international pressure, he said. "The Kim Jong Un regime thinks they will ensure their survival, as the bigger their nuclear arsenal will be, the less likely they will be hurt," Zhu said.
In this photo from June 16, 2014, a North Korean girl reads along a rural road north of Hamhung, in North Korea. South Hamgyong province. North Korea, which has one of the lowest per capita income in the world, considers nuclear weapons key to keeping its foes at bay.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: David Guttenfelder, AP)
North Korea currently has up to 16 nuclear weapons and could build as many as 100 by 2020, according to a February report by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. The country can put these on at least medium-range missiles capable of hitting most targets in Japan and South Korea, and it is developing longer range missiles to reach the USA, the report said.
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A congressional report this month raised doubts about North Korea's long-range program. "Although senior North Korean military leaders stated in 2012 their long-range missiles could hit the United States with nuclear weapons, there is no clear evidence that Pyongyang has developed a warhead small enough to fit on an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) or one capable of surviving re-entry at ICBM range," said the Congressional Research Service.
Navy Adm. William Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said earlier this month that North Korea has the ability to miniaturize a warhead to put on an ICBM, the Associated Press reported.
International sanctions "have been totally unsuccessful in terms of stopping North Korea from importing nuclear technology," Joel Wit, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle this month. More effective sanctions plus serious diplomacy are needed but unlikely, he said.
"The U.S. is pretty much done in terms of dealing with North Korea and is consumed with Iran, and I don't think that's going to change," Wit said.
Contributing: Oren Dorell in McLean, Va.
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