SEOUL — South Korea’s president said Tuesday that North Korea has almost completed preparations for a fifth nuclear test, and that it has reportedly placed a new midrange missile on standby for an impending launch.
North Korea said two days ago it had successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine in a continuation of its weapons tests during ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Seoul officials said they could not confirm whether Saturday’s test-firing was a success.
Meeting with South Korean journalists, President Park Geun-hye said South Korea believes North Korea can conduct a nuclear test anytime it decides to do so. She didn’t elaborate on why South Korea made such an assessment.
Other South Korean officials have made similar recent comments without elaborating amid media reports of increased activity at the country’s main nuclear test site. Park said last week there were signs North Korea was preparing for a new nuclear test.
Speculation about a fifth nuclear test increased last month when North Korea’s state media cited leader Kim Jong Un as ordering a test of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying warheads.
North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February and was subsequently slapped with UN sanctions. Park said Tuesday a further provocation by North Korea would only speed up its collapse.
The United States in recent years has deployed additional missile defense technology to the region to counter North Korean threats and is in talks with Seoul about deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system to the country. President Obama, in a CBS News interview released Tuesday, said the goal of the stepped-up US efforts is to create a ‘‘shield’’ against North Korea.
‘‘One of the things that we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile defense systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we’re also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they’re posing right now,’’ Obama said.
