美国有线新闻 CNN 韩称朝鲜高级军官叛逃韩国 朝鲜致力于核武器开发

韩称朝鲜高级军官叛逃韩国 朝鲜致力于核武器开发 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0003:31repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser 1 to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. First up, a high level defection from a communist nation. This is when someone deserts his or her own country — in this case North Korea -- to live somewhere else -- in this case, South Korea.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans have done this before. Their lives back home are strictly 2 controlled by the North Korean government. There's widespread poverty and hunger. But the defection announced yesterday could be of the highest ranking North Korean military official ever to do it. He was a senior intelligence officer in the communist country.

South Korean officials say he worked for a bureau responsible for spying on South Korea. Officials believe he could give a lot of valuable information on the secretive regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. His move to the South came a week after 13 North Korean restaurant workers defected to South Korea.

With all this going on, North Korea has been moving ahead with its controversial nuclear program.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This is the North Korean mid-range missile, says South Korea, now capable of carrying a nuclear weapon. South Korean intelligence concluding that Pyongyang's Nodong ballistic missile can deliver a one-ton warhead as far as 1,200 miles, putting South Korea, Japan, and U.S. military bases in Asia within reach of a nuclear strike.

North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un is already celebrating, posing for pictures near what North Korea claims to be the warhead.

U.S. intelligence has yet to reach the same conclusion, but U.S. officials say they must assume that Pyongyang has at least an untested capability 3 to miniaturize and launch a nuclear weapon.

JAMES CLAPPER, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: It is also committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that's capable of posing a direct threat to the United States.

SCIUTTO: Some nuclear analysts 5 share South Korea's more dire 4 assessment 6.

JOE CIRINCIONE, PLOUGHSHARES FUND: I've been very skeptical 7 about North Korea's capabilities 8. But the evidence is mounting. They probably have a nuclear warhead that can fit on a missile that could hit South Korea or Japan.

SCIUTTO: South Korea's assessment now shared in some U.S. intelligence circles follows a series of successful tests by Pyongyang, beginning with an underground nuclear test in January and followed by four missile tests, including a space launch believed to be a step toward an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the U.S.

Recent satellite images also show suspicious activity at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility. It is used to produce plutonium to build nuclear weapons.

In response, the U.N., the U.S., and China have all recently imposed harsh economic sanctions on North Korea, and the U.S. recently flew a nuclear capable B-52 near North Korean air space and sailed a U.S. aircraft carrier near its waters.

But North Korea has continued to make progress toward its long stated goal of becoming a nuclear power.

CIRINCIONE: U.S. policy has failed. We have not stopped them. We've tried ignoring them. We've tried sanctioning them. It doesn't work.

SCIUTTO: U.S. defense 9 officials tell me that the U.S. has already taken several steps to safeguard the U.S. and its allies in the region from a North Korean nuclear strike. This includes boosting the number of ground-based interceptors, and deploying 10 new missile defense to South Korea. This is the high altitude defense system known as THAAD. Though I am told that is still months away.

Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.