Search

South Korea placed more soldiers at frontier guard posts and told its fishermen to refrain from sailing near North Korean waters on Sunday, a day after the North Korean military declared an ''all-out confrontational posture'' against the South and threatened a naval clash. The North Korean threat on Saturday came in the same day when an American scholar said North Korean officials told him that they had ''weaponized'' enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs. Also Saturday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the country would maintain its ''status as a nuclear weapons state'' as long as it perceived a nuclear threat from the United States.American intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North had harvested enough fuel for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North constructed the weapons. The scholar, Selig S. Harrison, said the officials had not defined what ''weaponized'' meant, but the implication was that they had built nuclear arms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The North Korean military declared an ''all-out confrontational posture'' against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had ''weaponized'' enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs. American intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North had harvested enough fuel for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North constructed the weapons. The scholar, Selig S. Harrison, said the officials had not defined what ''weaponized'' meant, but the implication was that they had built nuclear arms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]