North Korea Creating "Poisoned Pens" For Germ Warfare Programme, Says US Report

North Korea is developing lethal bacteria and viruses as part of the country's biological weapons (BW) programme, US officials have warned. In its annual assessment, the US State Department said that the reclusive state has developed sprays and "poison pens" as a means of spreading deadly diseases, as per a report the UK-based The Times. The report titled "Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments" focusses less on North Korea's nuclear programme and more on the weapons designed to spread bugs such as anthrax and smallpox.

The report noted that the North has had a steady focus on its BW program.

"The United States assesses that the DPRK has a dedicated, national level offensive BW program. The DPRK has the capability to produce biological agents for military purposes. The DPRK has the technical capability to produce bacteria, viruses, and toxins that could be used as BW agents," the report posted on State Department's website said.

"Pyongyang probably is capable of weaponising BW agents with unconventional systems such as sprayers and poison pen injection devices, which have been deployed by the DPRK for delivery of chemical weapons and could be used to covertly deliver BW agents," it added.

"The DPRK also has the capability to genetically engineer biological products with technologies such as CRISPR, which have been reported by its State Academy of Sciences and other sources," the report said.

CRISPR is an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. It is a technology used to selectively edit genes.

Biological weapons release disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants. Agents such as anthrax can cause disease and death. It is thought that North Korea has had BW capabilities since the 1960s.