North Korea is on the cusp of perfecting its nuclear weapons capabilities and developing the ability to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon, Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo has warned.

Pompeo made the remarks in a speech at a conservative Washington think tank on Thursday, the BBC reported.

“They are close enough now in their capabilities that from a US policy perspective we ought to behave as if we are on the cusp of them achieving,” AP quoted him as saying. The CIA director said President Donald Trump had concluded that the US needs a global effort to ensure that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un does not possess that capacity.

Pompeo’s made the remarks even as Pyongyang issued another threat of nuclear annihilation against the US, reported the New York Daily News. On Monday, its deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Kim In-ryong warned that the situation in the Korean Peninsula had “reached the touch-and-go point, and a nuclear war may break out any moment”.

North Korea has accelerated its weapons tests this year. In July, it twice launched a long-range missile that could potentially reach the US mainland. In September, it conducted its sixth and most powerful atomic explosion yet.