South Korea’s national security council convened an emergency meeting, and Japan said it was highly likely that the explosion was a nuclear test.
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The South’s President Park Geun-Hye spoke out against the “maniacal recklessness” of Kim, who since taking control after the death of his father in 2011 has carried out a series of purges and weapons tests created to show strength and consolidate power.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye strongly condemned North Korea’s nuclear test, saying in a statement that it showed the “fanatic recklessness of the Kim Jong Un government as it clings to a nuclear development”.
Islamabad calls upon Pyongyang to comply with all the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions and refrain from actions which undermine peace and stability in the region.
It blamed the “racket of threat and sanctions against the DPRK kicked up by the US-led hostile forces.to find fault with the sovereign state’s exercise of the right to self-defense”.
There were further robust condemnations from Russian Federation, the European Union, NATO, Germany and Britain.
He says additional “significant” steps, including new sanctions, are being considered.
North Korea’s state TV said Friday that the test elevated the country’s nuclear arsenal and is part of its response to the worldwide sanctions following its earlier nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in January and February.
The North has previously made claims on “miniaturised” nuclear warheads but they have never been independently confirmed.
In view of the sanctions levelled against the repressive regime, the test could have been timed to coincide with U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to China and Southeast Asia.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters Friday that if North Korea had conducted another nuclear test it was “absolutely unacceptable”.
Obama said the test was “a grave threat to regional security and to worldwide peace and stability” and “follows an unprecedented campaign of ballistic missile launches”. It is Pyongyang’s fifth atomic test and the second in eight months. Senior officials from Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.
So far, China has “firmly opposed” the test, Japan “protested adamantly” and the United States warned of “serious consequences” including “new sanctions”. North Korea claimed its military possesses the ability to mount warheads on ballistic missiles, according to its state-run media. Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for aid were last held in late 2008 and fell apart in early 2009.
Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors nuclear tests around the world, indicates the magnitude – around 5 – of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was greater than a previous one in January.
He has also vowed to take all necessary action to protect South Korea from the North, including providing them with a nuclear umbrella.
The bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of about 15 kilotonnes.
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South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff estimates the yield was 10 kilotons, which is nearly twice that of the January test and would be the country’s largest blast yet.
