SINGAPORE: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday the United States would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea and he warned Pyongyang against transferring nuclear material overseas. A South Korean newspaper reported that Pyongyang was preparing to move an intercontinental ballistic missile from a factory near the capital to a launch site on the east coast.
In a speech to the Asia Security Conference in Singapore, Gates said the threat from North Korea, which this week detonated a nuclear device and launched a series of missiles, could start an arms race in Asia.
“We will not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in the region or on us,” he said. “We will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state.”
Gates said Washington would hold North Korea accountable if it transferred any nuclear material outside its borders. Gates did not elaborate on how the United States might respond.
North Korea has said it might test an intercontinental ballistic missile in response to UN punishment for what Pyongyang said was a satellite launch on April 5.
“Preparations to move an ICBM from the Saneum Weapons Research Center near Pyongyang by train have been captured by US spy satellites,” South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo newspaper quoted a source in Washington as saying. The research lab is the North’s main center of research and manufacture of long-range missiles, the newspaper said.
