A senior Obama administration official said he expects that North Korea will test a nuclear weapon before it is forced back to international disarmament negotiations.
At an event at the Brookings Institution, U.S. President Barack Obama's coordinator for weapons of mass destruction policy, Gary Samore, also on Friday expressed some understanding for Russia's objections to U.S. missile defense plans in Europe.
Samore said that North Korea was trying to divide the five countries that have been involved with it in disarmament talks. He said that North Korea was looking for ways to provoke problems.
"It's very clear that the North Koreans want to pick a fight," he said. "They want to kill the six-party talks."
North Korea has vowed to quit six-nation nuclear negotiations and restart its atomic program after the U.N. Security Council's criticism of North Korea's launch of a long-range missile on April 5. North Korea also kicked all international monitors out of its nuclear facilities.
Asked if he expected Pyongyang to carry out another nuclear test, Samore said: "I think they will. That's what they are threatening to do."
Pyongyang conducted its first atomic test in 2006, and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least a half-dozen nuclear bombs.
Samore said that the United States is committed to the six-nation talks and predicted that North Korea would be forced back to negotiations within nine months.
"We'll just wait," he said. He added that he believed that other major powers would support further sanctions against North Korea if they carry out a test.
"The Chinese are very, very angry at the North Koreans," he said.
Among the five countries involved in the negotiations with North Korea, China is widely seen as having the most influence. It is also a member of the U.N. Security Council, which would have to approve any international sanctions.
On Russia, Samore broke with the old U.S. line formulated under the Bush administration, that Russia's objections to U.S. missile defense plans in Europe were completely unfounded.
He said that some of Russia's concerns were valid in the context of U.S.-Russia talks for long-term reduction of its nuclear arsenals.
The Bush administration had argued that its missile defense plans in Poland and the Czech Republic were aimed at countering Iran and that the system's 10 interceptors were too few to pose a threat to Moscow's vast arsenal.
However, Samore said that Russia's concerns could be legitimate if the two countries significantly reduced their arsenals of nuclear missiles.
"When we go down to really low numbers then missile defense has a potential capability" to affect Russia's deterrent, he said, reported AP.
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