The Argentine Foreign Affairs ministry in a statement released yesterday expressed their condemnation against North Korea’s claim of a successful hydrogen bomb test. If the test is confirmed, the ministry said that Pyongyang would be in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
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“The objective of this is firstly to display to the world that it has acquired a new technology as to the nuclear weapons programme”, said Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and an expert on North Korea.
A dispatch by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency later cited “communication issues at the working level” as the reason for the cancellation, which came in the same week North Korea first claimed it had added the hydrogen bomb to its arsenal.
The White House said North Korea might not have in fact tested a hydrogen bomb.
Suspicions that North Korea had carried out a nuclear test were raised when an natural disaster was registered near the Punggye-ri nuclear site in North Korea at 10:00 Pyongyang time (01:30 GMT), with the tremors rattling Chinese border cities.
“What Kim Jong Un wants is a conversation with the U.S. President”, he said.
Current US policy, backed by ally South Korea is one of “no reward for bad behaviour” and requires North Korea to take a tangible step towards denuclearisation before proper talks can begin – a pre-condition many view as hopelessly unrealistic.
Individuals are barred from global travel and the assets of all entities and persons on the blacklist are to be frozen.
Tsuboi, a representative council member of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), visited North Korea in 1999 to host a photo exhibition on the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities and has maintained contact with hibakusha survivors now residing in the country.
“If they don’t solve that problem, we should be very tough on them on trade – meaning, start charging them tax or start cutting them off. You’d have China collapse in about two minutes”, he said.
The country declared it had nuclear weapons in 2003, and conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
According to Norsar, a Norway-based group that monitors nuclear tests, this test took place deeper underground, so it would be harder to monitor radiation and thus determine the type of weapon tested.
One senior Western diplomat said possible additions to the United Nations sanctions list could be foreign representatives of the North Korean organization that administers its nuclear developments and people linked to one of its key procurement companies.
“We have consistently made clear that we will not accept it as a nuclear state”, said a spokesman for the National Security Council.
The broadcasts are a low-tech response to Mr Kim’s saber-rattling, compared with options like the tightening of sanctions, Seoul developing its own missile defence system or potentially a beefing up of the U.S. military presence south of the border. None of them stopped North Korea from continuing its nuclear program.
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He said he believed Pyongyang had the capability to miniaturize a warhead for shorter missiles, but not yet for intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.
