North Korea has developed both nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems a U.S. defence report said Monday, expressing concerns about the possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Northeast Asia.
"North Korea, India and Pakistan have acquired both nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, while Iran is apparently headed down the same road," said the report of the Pentagon's task force on nuclear weapons management led by former Defence Secretary James Schlesinger.
"The derivative danger from North Korea or Iran is that they may pass nuclear weapons or nuclear technology to others," the report said. "Proliferation elsewhere remains a strong possibility, particularly in East Asia."
The report is the second part of the Pentagon commission's report on the review of the Pentagon's nuclear mission.
In the first report released last week, the commission said that North Korea "might have been encouraged to believe that they were reasonably safe from a nuclear response."
The report comes as U.S. President George W. Bush and other senior officials have talked about North Korea's uranium- as well as plutonium-based nuclear programs just weeks before Bush's terms ends early next week.
National security adviser, Stephen Hadley, also depicted North Korea last week as "an early challenge" for the incoming Barack Obama administration, predicting North Korea will try to renegotiate a six-party aid-for-denuclearization deal to test the fledgling Obama administration after its inauguration on Jan. 20.
In contrast to the U.S. government's official position not to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said last month North Korea has built several nuclear bombs, and U.S. intelligence and defence reports have categorized the North as a nuclear weapons state.
Obama has also said the North has eight nuclear weapons, pledging to support the six-party nuclear talks while seeking more direct bilateral engagement.
North Korea considers its nuclear arsenal as its only working deterrent against an invasion, saying Iraq was invaded due to lack of a nuclear arsenal.