N Korea already has 'validated' nuke: CIA

"We assess that North Korea has produced one or two simple fission-type nuclear weapons and has validated the designs without conducting yield-producing nuclear tests," the CIA said in written replies to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The CIA's Aug. 18 statement was made public recently by the Federation of American Scientists on its Web site (www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_hr/021103qfr-cia.pdf).

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Some experts said on Friday they had expected Pyongyang to carry out a test blast just as India and Pakistan did in 1998 to show the world they were members of the nuclear club, but the CIA's statement suggests this is not necessary.

"Testing would confirm (the existence of a nuclear capability) but it's not changing what they already believe," said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.

North Korea is widely reported to have been carrying out nuclear weapon-related tests, short of blasts, since the 1980s to develop what it now says is a nuclear deterrent that is ready to use.

"Pyongyang at this point appears to view ambiguity regarding its nuclear capabilities as providing a tactical advantage," the spy agency said. A test nuclear explosion could spark an international backlash that would isolate the reclusive Communist state further, the agency added.

Robert Norris, who has tracked North Korea's nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it was not surprising Pyongyang had reached this point.

"They've been working on this for several decades," he said.

David Albright, a physicist who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said the CIA statement suggested a belief the North had already "weaponised" a nuclear device that could be dropped from a plane or delivered by missile.

North Korea's envoy in Britain told Reuters in an interview Thursday the North possessed a "nuclear deterrent capability ... powerful enough to deter any US attack."

The latest crisis in US-North Korean relations began in October 2002, when US officials said the North had been pursuing a clandestine nuclear-weapons program that violated its international commitments.

The State Department said on Friday it was optimistic about chances for a fresh round of six-way talks on North Korea's suspected nuclear arms program after Secretary of State Colin Powell met a key Chinese diplomat.

The Chinese official, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, told reporters after his talks with Powell that Beijing was working to set up a new round of discussions among officials from the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and China.