Japan PM: N. Korea may be capable of sarin-loaded missiles

TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warns Thursday that North Korea may be capable of firing a missile loaded with sarin nerve gas toward Japan, as international concern mounts that a missile or nuclear test by the authoritarian state could be imminent.

“There is a possibility that North Korea is already capable of shooting missiles with sarin as warheads,” Abe tells a parliamentary panel on national security and diplomacy.

Abe is responding to a question about Japan’s readiness at a time of increased regional tension. A US navy aircraft carrier is heading toward the Korean Peninsula as Pyongyang prepares for the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il Sung this weekend. And with US-South Korean wargames ongoing, North Korea is intensifying rhetoric warning it would retaliate strongly against any aggression.

North Korea, which never signed the international Chemical Weapons Convention, is believed to have up to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, according to a South Korean defense white paper, though the North has never acknowledged it.

— AP