Washington’s “dialogue” with Beijing over the crisis will continue, Kim said.
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Sung Kim, the US State Department’s special representative for North Korea policy, also suggested that the US may launch its own sanctions in response to “the provocative and unacceptable behaviour by the North Koreans”.
North Korea’s fifth nuclear test has proved the clear limits of the global community’s sanctions on North Korea in denuclearizing the country, he said.
The North carried out its fifth nuclear test on Friday, claiming that it had successfully tested a nuclear warhead, and drawing global condemnation. Most worryingly for the global community, the North claimed it had been a miniaturised warhead that could be mounted on a missile.
After its fourth test in March, sanctions were toughened to include North Korea’s mineral trade and stricter banking restrictions.
North Korea has been hit by five sets of United Nations sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006, but has insisted it will continue, come what may.
The Friday test was North Korea’s fifth.
The North said Friday’s test had been of a “nuclear warhead that has been standardised to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets”.
“As Commander in Chief, I have a responsibility to safeguard the American people and ensure that the United States is leading the global community in responding to this threat and North Korea’s other provocations with commensurate resolve and condemnation”, Obama said.
North Korea is a very poor country and has much less to work with than, for instance, the United States and Soviet Union did in their nascent nuclear stages.
The BBC’s Korea correspondent Steve Evans says the South is using the same bloodcurdling rhetoric that the North frequently uses about the South Korean government in Seoul.
The relationship between North and South Korea is unsurprisingly tense, and this latest report indicates the South is fed up.
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Whether the North’s announcement of its test is simply the same mixture of boast, threat and propaganda that characterizes much of what North Korea chooses to show in its tightly controlled state media, or a major nuclear advancement, the picture that the North paints for the world may be as important as what actually happened.
