The Security Council met on Friday after North Korea confirmed earlier in the day that it had carried out a nuclear test in the country’s northeast.
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President Barack Obama condemned the test and said the United States would never accept the country as a nuclear power.
North Korea’s latest nuclear test, its most powerful to date, is a game-changer. according to North Korea.
“The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable (North Korea) to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power”.
Artificial seismic waves measuring 3.9 were reported after North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, for instance, and a 4.8 was reported from its fourth test this January.
“Thirdly there could be a tightening up and a strengthening of the sanctions regime”.
US President Barack Obama said he would do what was necessary to protect the US and allies from North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un faced worldwide condemnation on Friday for what was believed to be a 10-kilotonne blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site.
Obama was briefed on the situation as he flew home from a trip to Asia aboard Air Force One, Earnest said.
China will lodge representation with the DPRK over the nuclear test, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press conference yesterday.
“We already have a current missile defence system with the United States and on our own, so I think that … plays a very important role”, Monji said.
China is North Korea’s strongest political ally and economic lifeline.
But getting North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, to do that, he said, is a problem “because he’s known as an unpredictable person in his behavior”.
Combine that with everything scientists have learned from the four previous tests and North Korea may now have nuclear weapons capable of attacking its Asian neighbors, said nuclear expert Whang Joo-ho of Kyung Hee University in South Korea.
The United Nations Security Council would discuss the test and whether the 15-member body should punish the reclusive state by imposing further sanctions at a closed-door meeting on Friday requested by the United States, Japan and South Korea, diplomats said.
He said that for nearly 10 years as United Nations chief, and before that as South Korea’s foreign minister, he had tried with “all my efforts.to talk with North Koreans in any way I can to promote peace and security and reconciliation between the South and the North”.
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“China will, along with the global community, keep working toward the goal of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and commit to settling problems through the six-party talks”, it said in a statement.
