North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says his country would soon conduct a nuclear warhead test and test launch ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the official KCNA news agency reports.
Kim made the comments as he supervised a successful simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile that measured the "thermodynamic structural stability of newly-developed heat-resisting materials", KCNA said on Tuesday.
"Declaring that a nuclear warhead explosion test and a test-fire of several kinds of ballistic rockets able to carry nuclear warheads will be conducted in a short time to further enhance the reliance of nuclear attack capability, he (Kim) instructed the relevant section to make prearrangement for them to the last detail," the agency said.
The report comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula as South Korean and US troops stage annual military exercises that Seoul has described as the largest ever. The North has issued belligerent statements almost daily, after coming under new United Nations sanctions.
The United Nations Security Council imposed a new resolution to tighten sanctions against the North after a nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket last month.
US and South Korean experts have said the general consensus was that North Korea had not yet successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile. More crucially, the consensus is that there have been no tests to prove it has mastered the re-entry technology needed to bring a payload back into the atmosphere.
South Korea's defence ministry said on Tuesday it does not believe that North Korea has acquired missile re-entry technology.
"What North Korea announced today was North Korea's one-sided claim," Moon Sang-gyun, the ministry spokesman said at a news briefing.
The North also says the satellites it has launched into orbit are functioning successfully, although that has never been independently verified.
