Friday’s nuclear test carried out by North Korea for the fifth time has once again shown that despite tough Western sanctions the country has been able to still build nuclear weapons.
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U.S., European and Chinese seismological agencies reported that the tremor was recorded at 0030 GMT at surface level.
The United Nations secretary general reminded that the Security Council has already taken a series of sanction measure against North Korea but they failed to force the North Korean leadership to abandon nuclear weapons.
Replying to the question, of whether the possession of nuclear weapons by North Korea will pose a threat to other countries, in particular Russian Federation and China, the expert said that such scenario is quite unlikely.
North Korea stands out as the only country to have tested nuclear weapons this century.
Friday’s nuclear test came hours after President Barack Obama wrapped up the final Asian tour of his presidency, a pair of summits in China and Laos that included talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping that underscored stark differences on how to deal with regional issues between Washington and Beijing, North Korea’s only ally.
Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the US presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.
“As to the possible sanctions to be adopted by UN Security Council”.
Japan’s top government spokesman also said there was a high possibility the seismic event indicated that North Korea had conducted a nuclear test and that relevant ministries had been instructed to gather information.
“In reality, the means by which the United States, South Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached their limits”, he said.
China says that THAAD is a threat to its own security and will do nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear program.
Estimates of the explosion range from 10 kilotons to 20 kilotons.
North Korea officially acknowledged that on September 9 it conducted a nuclear test, a move viewed as a provocation by its neighboring states and strongly condemned by the worldwide community.
To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state. “Not a happy day”, Lewis told Reuters. “It’s not in the same class as the things superpowers were testing in the 1950s”. “And the North has every technological, political, strategic and national reason to continue testing both nuclear devices and missiles, particularly if it wants fully functioning nuclear-tipped missiles”.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said the test shows the USA needs to be tougher on North Korea, and blamed the Obama administration for failing to implement the sanctions options approved by Congress just this year. “They could commit suicide in many other, simpler ways”, the expert said.
China said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the situation. Shock waves of magnitude 5.3 were detected near Punggye-ri about 9:30 a.m., according to an earlier statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
North Korea has unnerved its neighbors repeatedly this year with missile tests.
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“This is a critical moment to solve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, so [I predict] the United Nations will adopt tougher sanctions against North Korea than ever before”, he said.
