N Korea may be preparing nuclear test-US media

Washington, Aug 18: Activity at a North Korean facility suggests Pyongyang could be preparing its first test of a nuclear bomb, US media cited US officials as saying.

But US officials told Reuters they had no new evidence of such a plan, and a diplomatic official in Seoul familiar with the North's nuclear program said he was skeptical of the reports.

ABC News yesterday quoted an unidentified senior military official as saying a US intelligence agency had observed ''suspicious vehicle movement'' at a suspected North Korean test site.

A senior State Department official, who was also not identified, told the network, ''It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is a real possibility.'' CNN reported US military sources said satellite images had shown wire bundles appearing at a suspected test site that could be used to monitor an underground test. It said the wires had not been connected to anything and that it was still unclear if a test was being prepared.

Asked about the media reports, a senior US official told , ''We have no new evidence to support that.'' Another official, who also declined to be identified, said there was no indication of a threat in the near term.

State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos declined to comment on intelligence matters.

South Korean government officials had no comment on the report and the diplomatic source in Seoul said he was not aware of a new intelligence report.

''I was not aware of the area mentioned in the report as being a possible site for a North Korean nuclear test,'' the source said.

ABC said the suspected test site was an underground facility called Pungyee-yok in northeast North Korea. The intelligence was brought to the attention of the White House last week, its report said.

FEARS HEIGHTENED

Fears about North Korea's nuclear ambitions were heightened when Pyongyang defied international warnings and fired seven missiles into waters east of the Korean peninsula on July 5. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the launches.

North Korea declared itself a nuclear power in February 2005 without testing. Talks on ending its nuclear program among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have been stalled since November.

Daniel Pinkston, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, said North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has bluffed in the past to get US attention.

Last year, activity at suspected North Korean test sites led some analysts to believe the secretive state was preparing to test a nuclear device, but nothing happened.

In 1998, US spy satellites detected a flurry of activity at an underground site at Kumchangri in North Korea designed to hold a plutonium reprocessing reactor.

But Pinkston said in a telephone interview that North Korea was ''very unhappy'' about the U.N. resolution following its missile tests and might want to show that ''under pressure and in an atmosphere of hostility they won't disarm.''

Reuters