The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has confirmed North Korea threatened to test its long-range nuclear weapons, the Kyodo news agency said Wednesday.

The unclassified portion of the semiannual report to Congress identifies a full range of countries and groups of proliferation concerns, including China, Iran and the al-Qaida network.

In late April 2003 during trilateral talks in Beijing, North Korea privately threatened to 'transfer' or 'demonstrate' its nuclear weapons, the report said.

It is also suspected the country has a long-range ballistic missile potentially capable of reaching parts of the United States with a nuclear-weapon-sized payload.

The report also said North Korea may have chemical weapons of unknown size capable of being employed in a variety of delivery means and some biological arms available for use.'

The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea admitted running a uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons, which was later denied by Pyongyang.

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