Just an Itty Bitty One

SEOUL, Oct 3 (Reuters) - An increasingly isolated North Korea said on Tuesday it would conduct its first-ever nuclear test, blaming a U.S. "threat of nuclear war and sanctions" for forcing its hand.

The statement by North Korea's foreign ministry, carried on the official KCNA news agency, was condemned by neighbouring Japan as "unacceptable" and caused South Korea to increase its security alert.

Britain said it would view any nuclear test as a highly provocative act.

The announcement confirms weeks of rumours the communist state was planning a test and came amid increasingly sour relations with the outside world after it test-fired missiles in July.

"The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK (North Korea) to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defence," the statement said.

But it added that North Korea would never use nuclear weapons first and would "do its utmost to realise the denuclearisation of the peninsula and give impetus to the world-wide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons."

Analysts say North Korea probably has enough fissile material to make six to eight nuclear bombs but probably does not have the technology to make one small enough to mount on a missile.

Pyongyang's latest and, to date, most extreme sabre-rattling was most probably aimed at trying to force the United States into direct talks and end a painful financial crackdown on impoverished North Korean offshore bank accounts, analysts said.

Japan's new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said any nuclear test by North Korea would be unacceptable...

...The North did not say when it would attempt to test a weapon, and experts inside and outside the Bush administration said the announcement itself is a negotiating ploy, intended to force the White House into lifting economic sanctions and conducting one-on-one talks with the isolated country.

American intelligence officials said they saw no signs that a test was imminent. But they cautioned that two weeks ago, American officials who have reviewed recent intelligence reports said American spy satellites had picked up evidence of indeterminate activity around North Korea’s main suspected test site. It was unclear to them whether that was part of preparations for a test, or perhaps a feint related to the visit at that time to Washington of South Korea’s president, Roh Moo Hyun.

At that meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Roh discussed the possibility of a test, and Mr. Roh said the event would “change the nature” of South Korea’s policy of economic engagement with the North, Mr. Roh told Americans he met afterward.

But they did not appear to have a coordinated strategy, and a senior Asian diplomat in Washington said today “no one is quite sure how to respond” if the North conducts a test in coming weeks or months.

In public, the Bush administration’s response was muted on Tuesday and left the American response as unclear as the North Korean threat...

I think they're down with that idea.