The Defense Ministry says it has no intelligence that North Korea has successfully miniaturized nuclear weapons that can be mounted on ballistic missiles.
 
In a regular briefing Thursday, ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said the North has advanced considerably in its efforts to miniaturize nuclear weapons but is not believed to have perfected the technology. 
 
Kim also said that the North's intercontinental ballistic missile, the KN-08, has not yet been test-fired or reached the stage of field deployment.
 
The spokesman’s comments come in response to recent remarks by William Gortney, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command, who said that Pyongyang has succeeded in miniaturizing nuclear warheads and has deployed the KN-08 missile.