Speaking to reporters after today’s Security Council meeting, Mr van Bohemen said the nuclear test was a flagrant violation of many United Nations resolutions and a clear threat to worldwide peace and security.
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South Korea has estimated the explosive yield of the detonation, if there was one, was 10 to 12 kilotons – less than the 15-kiloton weapon which destroyed Hiroshima in August 1945.
The test showed that North Korea is “ready to retaliate against the enemies” and has “practical countermeasures to the racket of threat and sanctions” against Pyongyang, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
China’s ambassador Liu Jieyi didn’t confirm whether his country would green-light sanctions.
The statement said China’s stance has always been to achieve denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula, prevent nuclear proliferation and maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia.
Under 32-year-old leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has accelerated the development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite UN sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.
“We believe new sanctions are indispensable”, French Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters as he headed into an emergency meeting of the council called to discuss a response to Pyongyang.
Gerard van Bohemen said the council was now working on what measures it could take in response.
The U.N. Security Council on Friday lambasted North Korea for conducting its fifth nuclear test, despite harsh global sanctions over its repeated provocations.
“At the same time, we must strengthen defense cooperation with our allies in the region”, the former secretary of State said.
Hours later, North Korean state media confirmed that it had carried out a “nuclear warhead explosion test”. The 10-kiloton test detected from the Punggye-ri nuclear facility had created “artificial seismic waves” and triggered a quake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale.
Kim Jong-Un’s rule has been erratic and brutal, and the availability of weapons able to kill thousands of people in seconds make a lethal combination against the world and South Korea, a country that’s still warring against its northern counterpart.
The test came as American and South Korean forces staged a re-enactment of the Incheon landing, 66 years after the start of Operation Chromite, the battle that turned the tide in the Korean War.
Naturally, Trump’s campaign grabbed at a kernel of truth – North Korea did accelerate their nuclear testing after 2008 – as the basis for blaming Clinton.
This week’s events pose yet another challenge for China, which has been under pressure to rein in its increasingly aggressive neighbor.
With the latest test, talk of heightening and expanding the current sanctions surely will begin.
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“This test, coming hard on the heels of a missile launch a few days ago, shows North Korea is proceeding with a unsafe escalation of weapons that directly threatens countries in the region. It’s not just the Korean Peninsula now, some of this capability would at least indicate he could move further afield”, Mr Key said.
