WASHINGTON – One of many tests conducted since North Korea’s claimed nuclear test found a radioactive gas consistent with an atomic explosion, but the U.S. government has made no definitive conclusions about the blast, a senior Bush administration official said Friday.
“The betting is that this was an attempt at a nuclear test that failed,” the official said. “We don’t think they were trying to fake a nuclear test, but it may have been a nuclear fizzle.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
The test found a type of radioactive gas that would be present after a nuclear detonation, the official said. It is one of a number of analyses conducted this week, which have not provided clarity about what North Korea detonated on Monday.
Results from another test disclosed Friday – an initial air sampling – showed no evidence of radioactive particles that would be expected from a successful nuclear detonation, a U.S. government intelligence official said.
But those test results did not necessarily mean the North Korean blast was not a nuclear explosion, that official said.
The readings reinforce uncertainty about the size and success of Monday’s underground explosion, which North Korea has trumpeted as a nuclear test. Data from seismic sensors have already indicated the explosion was smaller than expected.
Members of the U.N. Security Council agreed Friday on wording of a resolution that would clamp sanctions on the communist country. The draft, scheduled for a vote today, would authorize nonmilitary sanctions against the North, and says that any further action the council might want to take would require another U.N. resolution.
It also eliminates a blanket arms embargo from a tougher, previous draft, instead targeting specific equipment for sanctions including missiles, tanks, warships and combat aircraft.
Analysts and government officials have said it may take weeks or longer to determine with confidence whether the North Korean explosion was nuclear.
“Sampling devices may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the amounts of radioactive material may have been too small to detect because this may have been a failed test of a small nuclear device,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the private Arms Control Association, said Friday.
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