Pyongyang poses potentially existential threat: US intel chief

Washington, May 12 (IANS) North Korea's nuclear programme poses as a "potentially existential threat" to Washington, US National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said.

"It's clear that we have assessed this as a very significant, potentially existential threat to the US that has to be addressed," Coats said on Thursday at a Senate hearing.

Calling North Korea "an increasingly grave national security threat" to the US, Coats said Pyongyang had taken "initial steps" toward fielding a mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, Xinhua news agency reported.

However, Coats refused to reveal the US intelligence community's estimation about when Pyongyang would have an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of taking a nuclear warhead.

Tension has escalated on the Korean Peninsula over the few past months over Washington's threat to stage military attacks against Pyongyang in response to its nuclear and missile programmes.

The US and South Korea also held their largest ever joint military exercises in the past two months.

At the end of April, the USS Carl Vinson nuclear aircraft carrier task group arrived in the waters off the Korean Peninsula for a separate joint naval exercise with South Korea.

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