TOKYO (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced that his country had managed to reduce the weight of nuclear warheads, enabling them to mount them on ballistic missiles, the Yonhap news agency reported.
"We think the North's technology of miniaturizing nuke arms has reached a significant level… But South Korea and the U.S. have not had any intelligence that the North has succeeded in fitting nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles. There is no sign for that," Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed official from the Defense Ministry as saying.
South Korea's Defense Ministry has analyzed photos of the supposed miniature warhead published in the North Korean Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Tuesday and found that Pyongyang does not yet possess the technology to create a functional miniature warhead, the agency reported.
Tensions over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs escalated after Pyongyang said on January 6 that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb and put a satellite into orbit on February 7, violating UN Security Council resolutions and triggering condemnation from the international community.
