“In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on such measures in a new Security Council resolution”, he said.
Advertisement
United Nations diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks have been private, said a new resolution would aim to add more people to the sanctions list, including those linked to a key procurement company, and limit the travel of senior North Korean officials. When said hermit state is North Korea and the leader Kim Jong-un, expect a signed document saying he wants to open “the year with [the] exciting noise of the first hydrogen bomb!”.
Some sceptics dismissed North Korea’s claim.
“We can surmise that he’s trying to bolster his legitimacy as North Korea’s leader”, Fifield said.
The United States, South Korea and Japan agreed to launch a “united and strong” global response to North Korea’s apparent fourth nuclear test, as experts scrambled Thursday to find more details about the detonation that drew worldwide skepticism and condemnation.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion initially took to Twitter to express Canada’s outrage about the “reckless behaviour” of North Korea, then followed that up with a formal statement. It has been leery of taking such steps because of fears that a collapse of North Korea’s socialist government could cause an influx of refugees and lead to a pro-American, unified Korean nation on China’s doorstep.
North Korea’s self-proclaimed successful testing of a hydrogen bomb has succeeded in uniting the bifurcated field of Republican presidential candidates against a common enemy: Barack Obama. Kim Jong Un may have lit up a nuclear test in advance of his 33rd birthday on Friday.
In response to the apparent bomb test, Clinton used North Korea’s provocations as an opportunity to highlight what she has argued is the risk of electing an inexperienced commander in chief.
“But a regime collapse in Pyongyang leading to mass chaos next door and potentially a united Korean peninsula with Washington extending its influence northward to China’s doorstep is downright frightening”. Still, the speech did not specifically mention nuclear weapons, and it also emphasized the need to improve living standards, so few if any officials or analysts had seen the test coming.
A hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb uses fusion in a chain reaction that results in a far more powerful explosion than the fission blast generated by uranium or plutonium alone. “It is important to bring them to the bargaining table so that they do not attack South Korea”, concluded the analyst.
However, Volodymyr Yelchenko, UN ambassador for Ukraine, which is now a temporary member of the Council, said no member nation spoke out against imposing further sanctions on North Korea during the meeting, which was held behind closed doors. “But clearly the fact that they even conducted the nuclear test, the first in three years, is a big provocation”.
Advertisement
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing “firmly opposes” Pyongyang’s purported test and is monitoring the environment on its border with North Korea near the test site.
