US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned on Tuesday that North Korea was within five years of being able to strike the continental US with an intercontinental ballistic missile and said that, combined with its expanding nuclear program, the country “is becoming a direct threat to the United States.”
Gates is a former director of the CIA, and his statement, officials said, reflected both a new assessment by US intelligence officials and his own concern that Washington had consistently underestimated the pace at which the North was developing nuclear and missile technologies.
It is unclear how recent the new assessment may be, but Gates’ remarks, made just an hour after he met with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) may have been partly intended to convince China that the administration of US President Barack Obama no longer regards the North as a concern only in the region. The administration has increasingly put pressure on China to try to persuade North Korea, a longtime ally of China, to give up its nuclear weapons program.
“The Chinese are always talking about their ‘core interests’ and threats they may have to respond to,” said one US official deeply involved in North Korea strategy. “They needed to hear that we have a few, too.”
In comments to reporters during a visit to Beijing, Gates said he was worried that within a relatively short time frame North Korea would simultaneously continue to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“We consider this a situation of real concern, and we think there is some urgency in proceeding down the track of negotiations,” Gates said.
Meanwhile, North and South Korea restored an important cross-border communication channel yesterday, though South Korea still rejected North Korea’s calls for talks meant to defuse high tensions.
The North cut off the Red Cross communication line at the border village of Panmunjom last year when tension spiked over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang. Relations between the Koreas further soured following a North Korean artillery attack that killed four South Koreans on a front-line island in November.
The North, however, has recently proposed resuming talks with South Korea. It also made conciliatory gestures on Monday, offering to restore the Red Cross line and allowing South Korean officials back into a joint factory park in the North.
Seoul has so far rebuffed the dialogue offer as a ploy for aid, but decided to restore the Red Cross line.
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