North Korea tested a nuclear-tipped missile in 2018?

(Baonghean.vn) - Analysts warn that if North Korea continues to push forward with its weapons program at the same pace as this year, 2018 is likely to see the country conduct a nuclear-tipped missile test.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Shea Cotton, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said the device, which he called “Juche Bird” (a missile carrying a real nuclear warhead), would likely be launched over the Pacific Ocean.

No one is sure whether North Korea can build a thermonuclear device small enough to fit on a missile, but if leader Kim Jong-un's weapons facilities continue to advance Pyongyang's technology at the pace it did in 2017, many fear the Northeast Asian nation will soon achieve that capability.

“We need to assume North Korea can achieve this capability,” said James M. Acton, a physicist and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In 2017, in addition to a nuclear test, North Korea conducted more than 20 missile tests./.

Lan Ha

(According to Newsweek)