US warns of atom bomb test

NORTH Korea could be preparing to detonate a nuclear weapon for the first time, the United States has warned, claiming that satellite photographs show a flurry of activity at a suspected test site.

Intelligence experts have observed heavy construction work at a remote military location in the mountainous north-east of the country, including the digging of a giant tunnel and the erection of a grandstand for dignitaries invited to watch such a test.

The new developments are worrying for Washington, which has been locked in a stand-off with North Korea since branding it part of an "axis of evil" three years ago and has been trying to persuade the country to return to six-nation talks about its nuclear programme.

Last night, Mohamed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned of grave political and environmental consequences of any North Korean nuclear test and urged world leaders to put pressure on the state not to carry one out.

"There will be disastrous political repercussions in Asia and the rest of the world. I think there could be major environmental fallout, which could lead into dissemination of radioactivity in the region," he said.

"I hope every leader who has contact with North Korea is on the phone today with North Korean authorities to dissuade them from a test."

A White House spokesman said the US president, George Bush, had "expressed concern about North Korea" in a lengthy telephone conversation with Hu Jintao, the Chinese leader.

Experts concede that the activity at the site could be an elaborate bluff staged for spy satellites by Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, to try to win economic concessions from the US in return for resuming talks and curtailing its nuclear activities.

"The North Koreans have learned how to use irrationality as a bargaining tool," one senior US official told the New York Times. "We can’t tell what they are doing."

North Korea has refused to take part in a fourth round of negotiations with the US, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia until Washington adopts a more conciliatory tone.

The already strained relations between the countries degenerated further last month when Mr Bush said that Mr Kim was "a dangerous person" and "a tyrant who starved his people".

The North Korean leader responded by accusing Mr Bush of being a cowboy. "He is a half-baked man in terms of morality and a philistine we can never deal with," he said.

News of the satellite photographs comes at a delicate time for North Korea’s relations with its southern Asian neighbours. Tensions have been rising since the last round of talks in June last year, after which Mr Kim announced his country was suspending his participation indefinitely.

Japan warned yesterday that it was considering referring the issue to the United Nations Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

"We have to consider it as the next option if there is no progress in the six-way talks," said Nobutaka Machimura, the Japanese foreign minister.

Mr Kim has previously said that he would consider sanctions "tantamount to a declaration of war".

Russia, meanwhile, announced that it had dispatched a delegation to Pyongyang to investigate rumours of an impending weapons test.

North Korea has been working on a nuclear weapons programme since it expelled UN monitors and restarted a reactor at Yongbyon in 2002. The US says it received help from Pakistani experts.