SEOUL – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says the country has
miniaturised nuclear warheads to be mounted on ballistic missiles and ordered
improvements in the power and precision of its arsenal, state media reports.

Kim has called for his military to be prepared to mount
pre-emptive attacks against the United States and South Korea and stand ready
to use nuclear weapons, stepping up belligerent rhetoric after coming under new
United Nations and bilateral sanctions.

US and South Korean troops began large-scale military drills
this week, which the North calls “nuclear war moves” and threatened
to respond with an all-out offensive.

Kim’s latest comments were his first direct mention of the
claim, previously made repeatedly in state media, to have successfully
miniaturised a nuclear warhead to be mounted on a ballistic missile, which is
widely questioned.

“The nuclear warheads have been standardised to be fit
for ballistic missiles by miniaturising them,” North’s KCNA news agency
quoted Kim as saying as he inspected the work of nuclear workers, adding
“this can be called true nuclear deterrent.”

“He stressed the importance of building ever more
powerful, precision and miniaturised nuclear weapons and their delivery
means,” KCNA said.

Kim also inspected the nuclear warheads designed for
thermo-nuclear reaction, KCNA said, referring to a hydrogen bomb that the
country claimed to have tested in January.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6
claiming to have set off a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, which was disputed by
many experts and the governments of South Korea and the United States. The
blast detected from the test was simply too small to back up the claim, experts
said at the time.

The UN Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the isolated
state last week for the nuclear test. It launched a long-range rocket in
February drawing international criticism and sanctions from its rival, South
Korea.

On Tuesday, South Korea announced further measures aimed at
isolating the North by blacklisting individuals and entities that it said were
linked to Pyongyang’s weapons programme.

China also stepped up pressure on the North by barring one
of the 31 ships on its transport ministry’s blacklist.

But a UN panel set up to monitor sanctions under an earlier
Security Council resolution adopted in 2009 said in a report released on
Tuesday that it had “serious questions about the efficacy of the current
United Nations sanctions regime.”

North Korea has been “effective in evading
sanctions” by continuing to engage in banned trade, “facilitated by
the low level of implementation of Security Council resolutions by Member States,”
the Panel of Experts said.

“The reasons are diverse, but include lack of political
will, inadequate enabling legislation, lack of understanding of the resolutions
and low prioritisation,” it said, referring to the incomplete enforcement
of sanctions.

– Reuters