nuclear-news

WASHINGTON — North Korea has a “small number” of nuclear weapons, the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday, although that number was not defined.

Air Force Gen. John Hyten told a virtual forum that the specific numbers were “classified” and in many ways hard to understand.

“But a small number is a confident characterization of nuclear capabilities that can threaten their neighbors or the United States,” he said in a symposium hosted by the National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Hyten offered no further explanation of what he meant by “a small number.”

The US has never officially discussed its assessment of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, but the communist state is widely estimated to possess more than 70 nuclear warheads.