Washington, Feb 13, SPA -- North Korea is unlikely to use a nuclear weapon unless Kim Jong-il’s regime feels its survival is threatened, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said Thursday.“Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions and proliferation behavior threaten to destabilize East Asia,” Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee, delivering the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment. However, North Korea “probably views its nuclear weapons as being more for deterrence, international prestige, and coercive diplomacy than for warfighting and would consider using nuclear weapons only under certain narrow circumstances,” Blair said.“We also assess [that] Pyongyang probably would not attempt to use nuclear weapons against U.S. forces or territory unless it perceived the regime to be on the verge of military defeat and risked an irretrievable loss of control,” Blair said.--SPA www.spa.gov.sa/635086