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The New York Times reported Monday that Doctor Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father of the Pakistani nuclear program," saw with his own eyes three completed "nuclear devices" that appeared to be nuclear weapons. If Khan's testimony is true, it would be the first time an outsider has confirmed the existence of North Korean nuclear weapons, and would represent a grave change in the North Korean nuclear crisis; the crisis would transform into one completely different from the one we've got now.
Observations that North Korea has already developed and come into possession of nuclear weapons have come from several quarters; the American CIA believes the North has at least one or two nuclear weapons and has the capability to build more. The North announced that it reprocessed about 8,000 spent fuel rods, and made a display of its "nuclear deterrent" to American experts while showing them its nuclear-related facilities and materials.
Yet the South Korean government has throughout characterized the North's provocative attitude as a "tactic to strengthen its negotiating position" and expressed skepticism about the North's actual possession of nuclear weapons. The Beijing six-party talks, too, aims to see the North's nuclear facilities dismantled, but they aren't predicated on the North's prior possession of nuclear weapons. If, as Khan testified, North Korea had nuclear weapons five years ago, it's impossible to know just how many they have now. The essence of the North Korean nuclear crisis, as well as its solution, cannot help but be fundamentally altered.
The issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons is directly connected to the fate of our race. The NYT reported that Khan's testimony had been passed between the South Korean, American and Japanese governments. The government must inform the citizens of this intelligence as quickly as possible and devise multifaceted responses in accordance with the fact that the North's possession of nuclear weapons has gone from a hypothetical situation to an actual one. The government and people, who have grown insensitive to the current crisis as the North Korean nuclear issue grew prolonged, should not misunderstand the situation as being stable. If the North one day suddenly announced its possession of nuclear weapons or conducted a nuclear test, how would the government cope with the people's confusion and the extreme crisis situation that would result on the Korean Peninsula?
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