REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SEOUL - North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, South Korea's defense minister said Thursday, but he added that there are no signs that the North is preparing for a full-scale conflict.

The report came hours after North Korea's military warned that it has been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. It was the North's latest war cry against America in recent weeks. 

The reference to smaller weapons could be a claim that North Korea has improved its nuclear technology, or a bluff. The North is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to miniaturize nuclear bombs enough to mount them on long-range missiles.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said he did not know the reasons behind the North's missile movement, and that it "could be for testing or drills." He dismissed reports in Japanese media that the missile could be a KN-08, which is believed to be a long-range missile that if operable could hit the United States.

Kim told lawmakers at a parliamentary committee meeting that the missile has "considerable range" but not enough to hit the US mainland. The range he described could refer to a mobile North Korean missile known as the Musudan, believed to have a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles). That would make Japan and South Korea potential targets — along with US bases in both countries — but there are doubts about the missile's accuracy.

The Pentagon announced that it will hasten the deployment of a missile defense system to the US Pacific territory of Guam to strengthen regional protection against a possible attack. Experts say North Korea has not demonstrated that it has accurate long-range missiles. Some suspect that an apparent long-range missile unveiled by the North at a parade last year was actually a mockup.

"From what we know of its existing inventory, North Korea has short- and medium-range missiles that could complicate a situation on the Korean Peninsula (and perhaps reach Japan), but we have not seen any evidence that it has long-range missiles that could strike the continental US, Guam or Hawaii," James Hardy, Asia Pacific editor of IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, wrote in a recent analysis.

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