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North Korea has a hydrogen bomb: Kim Jong-un

December 10, 2015
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects the Phyongchon Revolutionary Site in Pyongyang. (KCNA/Yonhap)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects the Phyongchon Revolutionary Site in Pyongyang. (KCNA/Yonhap)

By Brian Han

If North Korea truly wants to sign a peace treaty with the U.S., telling the world that you’ve just finished developing a hydrogen bomb is certainly not the way to go about it.

Kim Jong-un made a public appearance on Wednesday to observe a historic site when he mentioned the update.

“Our country is now a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate a self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation,” the leader said according to the communist nation’s media mouthpiece the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).

According to South Korean intelligence agencies, his statement holds significance primarily because the idea of the North developing a hydrogen bomb had never been on their radar based on their response to the situation.

“We don’t have any information that North Korea has developed an H-bomb,” an intelligence official told Yonhap News. “We do not believe that North Korea, which has not succeeded in miniaturizing nuclear bombs, has the technology to produce an H-bomb.”

But experts are not ruling out the possibility that Kim may be developing this particular weapon.

“It’s hard to regard North Korea as possessing an H-bomb. I think it seems to be developing it,” researcher at the Science and Technology Policy Institute Lee Chun-geun said.