Other world leaders also condemned the test. President Barack Obama, who spoke with Geun-hye via phone after the test, said the US will never accept North Korea as a nuclear power, AP reports.
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The latest nuclear test carried out by North Korea on Friday severely threatens regional security as well as worldwide peace, US President Barack Obama said in a statement.
Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, said that the North may have believed that the dispute among South Korea, the U.S. and China over THAAD would allow it to conduct the nuclear test without any repercussions.
The Security Council in March imposed the toughest sanctions on North Korea in two decades, reflecting growing anger at Pyongyang’s nuclear test and rocket launch earlier this year in defiance of a ban on all nuclear-related activity.
The magnitude-5.0 natural disaster today is the largest of the four past quakes associated with North Korean nuclear tests, according to South Korea’s weather agency.
It would also be potentially bigger than the one dropped on Nagasaki soon afterwards.
It’s unclear whether North has achieved the technology needed to manufacture a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could fit on a long-range missile capable of hitting the United States.
It is unclear how committed all major powers are in applying pressure on the North Korean regime, as China and the USA are in a period of heightened confrontation in East Asia.
According to South Korea’s Meteorological Administration, the blast had an explosive force of 10 kilotons, twice that of the previous test and the secretive nation’s most powerful detonation to date.
After hours of speculation, following a powerful artificial natural disaster today (9 September), the North Korean regime confirmed that the country had conducted a nuclear test.
“If North Korea conducted a nuclear test, that can never be tolerated”. Later on, the communist country revealed that it has successfully conducted a nuclear detonation test in the nuclear sites which may have caused the occurrence of an quake.
Sanctions, including ones targeting the North Korean leader personally, have had little effect.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called North Korea an “outlaw nation in the neighborhood” following Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test on Friday.
South Korea now believes North Korea conducted a nuclear test, an official with the South Korean Defense Ministry tells CNN.
In January, North Korea claimed to have conducted a hydrogen bomb test, but many foreign governments and experts were skeptical about the claim.
The test violaties United Nations resolutions and will further strain North Korea’s already tense relations with the US and other countries in the region.
Seismologists detected a powerful artificial natural disaster at 0030 GMT Friday, which they said was centered around Punggye-ri, North Korea’s nuclear test site.
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France also strongly condemned the nuclear test.
