North Korea Vows to Conduct Nuclear Tests

Yikes, check this out.

North Korea on Tuesday vowed to conduct a nuclear test to bolster its defenses against the United States, dramatically raising tensions in the region and marking the communist government’s first ever unambiguous public threat to demonstrate itself as a nuclear power.

Although North Korea has verbally declared that it possesses nuclear devices — U.S. intelligence officials have estimated they may now have as many as a half dozen or more — it has yet to take the final provocative step of testing one. Such a move has been widely viewed by analysts as one that would force the Bush administration and regional powers, including China, Japan and South Korea, to deal far more harshly with the North Koreans.

In a statement issued through the official KCNA News Service, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said, “The DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under conditions where safety is firmly guaranteed,” using the official name of North Korea — the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It offered no details as to when the promised test might occur but added that the North’s “nuclear weapons will serve as reliable war deterrent for protecting the supreme interests of the state and the security of the Korean nation from the U.S. threat of aggression.”

See the full article here. This guy is nuts.