North Korea now a ‘serious and imminent threat’ Japan warns claiming Kim Jong un has secretly amassed miniaturised nukes small enough to fit on its ballistic missiles

NORTH Korea has secretly shrunk its nuclear warheads to fit easily on its ballistic missiles, a report warns.

Japan's military bosses have slammed the miniaturisation of the nukes as a "serious and imminent threat" in a defence white paper.

Production of the mini-nukes has been highlighted by Japanese daily newspaper Yomiuri.

American officials have said for years that the country has probably already produced the smaller warheads.

But until now, Japan has downplayed the likelihood.

Just last year it said that "miniaturising a nuclear weapon small enough to be mounted on a ballistic missile requires a considerably high degree of technological capacity".

That stance now appears to have changed, with this year's defence white paper - to be approved at a Cabinet meeting in mid-September - upgrading its estimate of North Korea's nuclear weapons capability based on the latest findings.

Tokyo’s acute fear is that North Korea’s nuclear programme continues to grow unabated with no foreseeable plan to slow its growth, let alone eliminate them.

Expert, Vipin Narang

As these say that Pyongyang has achieved the miniaturisation of warheads, Japan will maintain that North Korea's military activities pose "a serious and imminent threat", reports Yomiuri.

Vipin Narang, a nuclear affairs expert in America, said North Korea’s ability to build nuclear warheads small enough to fit on its ballistic missiles has been widely accepted for several years.

But, with denuclearisation talks with the US continuing to stall, “it is Japan that is most threatened, and probably the primary target of such a capability,” he said.

“So openly acknowledging it underscores Tokyo’s acute fears that North Korea’s nuclear programme continues to grow unabated with no foreseeable plan to slow its growth, let alone eliminate them.”

SMALL WARHEADS

Two years ago, a leaked report by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the US concluded that North Korea had successfully produced a miniaturised nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles.

And according to South Korean media reports late last year, the South Korean intelligence agency told politicians that North Korea had continued to produce smaller nuclear warheads even after the Singapore summit between Trump and Kim in June 2018.

At that time, North Korea committed “to work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” and destroyed some tunnels and buildings at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

But a second Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un meeting in February collapsed without an agreement, and North Korea has since resumed missile tests.

TALKS TO RESTART?

The North Korean leader has been repeatedly photographed alongside his military, firing short-range missiles and rockets in a show of force against recent US-South Korea joint military exercises.

Most of the weapons tested were missiles and rockets that experts said could target South Korea, not mainland America.

Denuclearisation efforts were discussed today by foreign ministers from South Korea and Japan, who met their Chinese counterparts in Beijing.

Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat confirmed today that America is ready to restart nuclear negotiations with North Korea - a day after American and South Korean forces ended their 10-day-long joint drills that North Korea criticised as a rehearsal to invade the country.

Trump recently said that he received a "beautiful" three-page letter from Jong-un.

He added that the North Korean leader wanted to meet again to restart the talks after the US-South Korean drills ended and that he gave "a small apology" over the weapons tests.

Trump's top envoy on North Korea, Stephen Biegun, told reporters in Seoul that "we are prepared to engage as soon as we hear from our counterparts in North Korea".