North Korea’s announcement that it conducted its fourth nuclear test Wednesday has successfully shaken the nerves of leaders of the global powers.
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North Korea is seeking a peace treaty with the United States, China and South Korea to formally end the Korean War and will not stop its nuclear tests until it gets one, a person who relayed that message from North Korea to China told Reuters.
South Korea responded to North Korea’s nuclear test with broadcasts of anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rival’s tense border Friday, believed to be the birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
South Korean army soldiers remove camouflage from the loudspeakers near the border area between South Korea and North Korea in Yeoncheon, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016.
North Korea had previously shown extreme sensitivity to such broadcasts, which it referred to as “an act of war” in August 2015 when South Korea resumed them for the first time in 10 years.
The US navy is increasingly anxious about tensions on the Korean peninsula after Pyongyang tested a nuclear device, a move that could spur closer military ties between neighbours South Korea and Japan, a senior US officer said on Friday. But, we have to be bigger than the North Koreans and I would urge South Korea and other like-minded countries in the region to exercise restraint. “It is simply rising to the bait”.
When South Korea last blasted proaganda over the border for two weeks last August, the two Koreas exchanged artillery fire.
US Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, telling him the North’s nuclear test had proven that China’s approach to handling its erratic ally “has not worked and we can not continue business as usual”.
Later today, South Korea is due to announce the results of its first round of investigations of samples collected from sea operations to see if radioactive elements leaked from the North’s test.
“We are sending out K-pop and information about life in South Korea as well as about North Korea”, a South Korean military official told NBC News.
Observers expect North Korean officials to be angered by the decision.
In parliament on yesterday, Defence Minister Han Min Koo said that North Korea’s detonation of what it claims to be a hydrogen bomb constitutes an “abnormal situation”.
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South Korean and us military leaders also have discussed the deployment of USA “strategic assets”, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said. Apart from providing material assistance, that includes defending North Korea from condemnation at the United Nations over its human rights abuses and designating refugees from the North as economic migrants rather than asylum seekers.
