Despite the US government's previous assurances that it did not recognize North Korea as a nuclear power Washington seems to be moving toward accepting the fact that the communist country possesses atomic bombs.
The director-designate for the Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta's testimony in a Congressional confirmation hearing has only fueled South Korea's worries that the US government is beginning to shift away from its former stance.
The CIA nominee told US Senate Intelligence Committee members on Wednesday that North Korea detonated a "nuclear weapon" in 2006.
Panetta's statement is considered a departure from Washington's former official claims that Pyeongyang tested a "nuclear device" and that the experiment itself did not succeed.
Outgoing US spy chief Michael Hayden told officials in Seoul in 2007 that Washington does not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state based on the assumption that Pyeongyang's nuclear test had failed.
Last year the White House National Security Council and the US Defense Department reportedly admitted to making a "huge error" after a Pentagon report described North Korea as a nuclear power.
There has been much speculation by experts on North Korea that the communist country has enough plutonium to make up to a dozen nuclear warheads but the former George W. Bush government downplayed speculation that the Stalinist nation had such capabilities.
In Wednesday's Senate hearing the would-be US CIA leader said under his leadership the CIA will redouble efforts in gathering intelligence to reliably assess whether the North Korean leader Kim Jongil is prepared to give up his country's nukes "once and for all."
Nam Ki-yung, Arirang News.
FEB 06, 2009
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Wednesday, FEB 10, 2010, (KST) 
