The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting later Friday to discuss the test.
Advertisement
The test will send tensions soaring over the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions, which have already earned worldwide condemnation and United Nations sanctions.
North Korea confirmed it has conducted a “nuclear warhead explosion” test, defying increased worldwide sanctions and pressure to curb its nuclear ambitions.
China “firmly opposed” the test, Japan “protested adamantly” and the USA warned of “serious consequences”.
South Korea had said that the communist regime in North Korea conducted its fifth atomic test, which produced its biggest explosive yield yet to date.
The bomb dropped by the USA on Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of about 15 kilotonnes.
In recent months, the North has conducted a series of ballistic missile launches and has in the past often stated its aim of hitting U.S. targets.
North Korea has also been angered by a US and South Korean plan to install an anti-missile defence system in the South and by the allies’ massive annual joint military exercises, which are still taking place. Experts say they are likely aimed at refining warhead design and reliability as well as increasing yield.
The US Geological Survey has reported a 5.3-magnitude quake near a nuclear site in North Korea.
Kim said the recent series of missile tests, including one launched from a submarine that far exceeded the range of previous such exercises, was a precursor to this “show of force” planned for months and timed to coincide with its founding day anniversary. “I think it was also aimed at maximising shock to the global community”, he said.
In a statement, the USGS added: “Possible explosion, near the location where North Korea has detonated nuclear explosions in the past”.
Japanis calling for new sanctions, but China, Pyongyang’s ally, has repeatedly stressed the need to avoid an escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula.
Such nuclear tests are banned by the United Nations but this is North Korea’s second this year.
Hours after South Korea noted unusual seismic activity near North Korea’s northeastern nuclear test site, the North said in its state-run media that a test had “finally examined and confirmed the structure and specific features of movement of (a) nuclear warhead that has been standardized to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets”.
Advertisement
However, at a rare ruling party congress in Pyongyang in May, Kim Jong-Un hailed what he called a “historic” landmark, and insisted it had been a hydrogen blast.
