By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
North Korea has about 1,000 short- and medium-range missiles that are capable of hitting U.S. military facilities in Japan and Guam as well as South Korea, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said Wednesday.
Kim told a forum in Seoul that the North is also believed to have 30 to 40 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
Kim's remarks indicated an increase in Pyongyang's missile stockpile given South Korean military authorities had made an assessment in 2008 that the communist state would have about 800 short, medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).
Kim said North Korea is struggling to maintain the regime amid worsening economic woes. A recent currency revaluation aggravated the already dire situations in the North, he added.
According to recent reports, North Korea has established an independent military division to take control of its 3,000-kilometer-range IRBMs.
The 2008 defense paper published by the South Korean defense ministry pointed out the North successfully deployed IRBMs in 2007 after it started developing a mid-range ballistic missile in the late 1990s.
The North Korean IRBM was developed based on the former Soviet Union-designed SS-N-6.