Nuclear-armed North Korea could resume missile tests anytime and has active biological and chemical weapons programs, CIA Director Porter Goss told Congress Wednesday. "North Korea could resume flight testing at any time ... including longer range missiles capable of reaching the United States," he testified at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. "We believe North Korea has active CW (chemical weapons) and BW (biological weapons) programs ... ready for use," said Goss, who took over as CIA director in September.

Goss spoke a week after North Korea publicly declared for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons and that it was boycotting six-party talks designed to end its nuclear weapons programs.

The talks were aimed at denuclearising the Korean peninsula and end a stand-off with the United States, which in October 2002 accused the Stalinist state of operating a program based on highly enriched uranium, violating a 1994 arms control agreement. Goss did not say whether North Korea's nuclear technology would allow it to launch a nuclear-tipped missile.

In 1998, North Korea launched a long-range ballistic test missile over key US ally Japan, becoming one of Tokyo's biggest security worries and prompting Tokyo to begin researching missile defence.

"North Korea continues to market its ballistic missile technology," Goss said Wednesday.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005