BEIJING, (Reuters) – North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States and could develop an inter-continental ballistic missile within five years, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said yesterday.
The latest U.S. assessment of the missile threat — offered by Gates in the capital of North Korea’s only ally, China — appeared to confirm projections the American intelligence community first issued in 2001.
Gates praised Chinese efforts to reduce tension on the Korean peninsula but also stressed the urgency to rein-in the reclusive state, which has twice tested nuclear devices.
China is Pyongyang’s top diplomatic and economic backer, and Gates said North Korea would likely come up in talks between Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington next week.
“With the North Koreans’ continuing development of nuclear weapons and their development of inter-continental ballistic missiles, North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States,” Gates told reporters after talks with Hu.
Gates said he did not believe North Korea was an immediate threat, but added that it was also not a “five-year threat.”
“I think that North Korea will have developed an inter- continental ballistic missile within that time — not that they will have huge numbers or anything like that,” Gates said. “But … I believe they will have a very limited capability.”
A senior U.S. official in Washington told Reuters the United States “will have to respond to this threat.”
