TOKYO - North Korea has clarified a statement made in a weekend radio broadcast that appeared to claim publicly for the first time that the country possesses nuclear weapons.

Yesterday's unusual rectification followed a flurry of statements of concern in the region over the radio commentary, which was widely interpreted as saying that North Korea "has come to have nuclear and other strong military weapons to deal with increased nuclear threats by the U.S. imperialists."

In a commentary broadcast yesterday by the official Korean Central Broadcasting Station, however, instead of saying it had come to have the weapons, the government said it was "entitled" to have nuclear arms because of what it said were continuing threats from the United States.

"To safeguard our sovereignty and right to exist we are entitled to have powerful military countermeasures, including nuclear weapons," the passage read.

The difference in language between Sunday's and yesterday's messages hung on as little as a single syllable in the Korean language, a nuance attributable by some to regional differences in pronunciation, which led to drastically different readings of the initial commentary.

The first reports by the foreign news media of Sunday's commentary came from South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which suggested that North Korea had made an affirmative statement that it possesses nuclear weapons.

Japanese and British broadcasting monitoring services interpreted the Sunday commentary along much the same lines as yesterday's clarification.

Amid the differing interpretations of the broadcasts, analysts stressed that it was impossible to understand with certainty the North Korean government's intentions.

"It was either a broadcaster's mistake in North Korea, a mistake in transcription or translation, or a distortion by Yonhap, which is pretty well known for propagating rumors, especially by hard-line elements in South Korea," said Peter Hayes, director of the Nautilus Institute, a California-based nonprofit research group.

Another possible interpretation is that North Korea was engaging in deliberate ambiguity in order to warn the United States and its neighbors, Japan and South Korea, while maintaining a scrap of deniability.

Since 1994, American intelligence estimates have said that North Korea probably possesses two nuclear devices. Recent estimates from China have reportedly placed the number as high as five.

North Korea is also a producer of rudimentary but operational intercontinental ballistic missiles that are based on the Scud missile developed by the former Soviet Union.