EFL:SEOUL, May 9 -- A North Korean official told a delegation of Japanese academics visiting Pyongyang last week that a nuclear test was an "indispensable" step toward proving the nation's military capabilities to the world and suggested the government might conduct one soon, according to the head of the delegation. Word of the new North Korean threat came even as the Pyongyang government appeared to hint late Sunday night that it may be willing to return, under certain conditions, to multilateral talks aimed at its nuclear disarmament. During those talks, which have been stalled for the past 11 months, North Korea previously suggested it might conduct a test. But the statement to the Japanese delegation marked the first time officials in the secretive Stalinist state have issued such a threat since intelligence emerged that North Korea may be in the midst of preparing an underground nuclear test.Yasuhiko Yoshida, a former U.N. proliferation expert and North Korea specialist at Osaka University of Economics and Law, said in a telephone interview that he had held two discussions on May 3 with North Korean officials at the Institute for Disarmament and Peace, a Pyongyang think tank linked to the North Korean Foreign Ministry. Yoshida said the key comment came during the second discussion -- a phone call from the institute's deputy director, Pak Hyon Jae, who Yoshida said used studied language and spoke through an interpreter. Pak, according to Yoshida, said a North Korean nuclear "test is indispensable," adding, "You'll find that out soon."
"It is important that this official at a government think tank admitted that nuclear testing was necessary," said Yoshida, a former diplomat with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Yoshida was leading a humanitarian medical mission to Pyongyang and spoke on Monday after returning from the eight-day trip. Yoshida's account sent a fresh wave of alarm through North Asian media outlets at a time when fears that North Korea soon may conduct a nuclear test are running high. U.S. officials have privately said that spy satellite photos indicate North Korea could be making preparations for a nuclear test at a site in the northeast of the country; they have also warned that the detected activity could be a North Korean ruse.