Japanese politician and pro-wrestling icon Kanji Inoki has met a close confidant of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his latest visit to Pyongyang, a day after North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test in defiance of heavy worldwide sanctions.
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The North on Friday conducted its fifth and most powerful atomic test, just eight months after its previous one.
North Korea has reportedly completed preparations for another nuclear test.
“The United States condemns North Korea’s September 9 nuclear test in the strongest possible terms as a grave threat to regional security and to global peace and stability”, he said.
Yonhap news agency, citing unidentified Seoul government sources, reported Monday there were signs the North had finished test preparations in an unused tunnel. The letters read “Overthrow Kim Jong Un and Discard North Korea’s nuclear”.
A push for further sanctions was “laughable”, North Korea said on Sunday, vowing to continue to strengthen its nuclear power.
North Korea has boasted it can now make nukes small enough to mount a warhead on a missile.
All five nuclear tests have been conducted at the Punggye-ri site in the country’s northeast.
The UK, US and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.
Yonhap has close ties to South Korea’s government and is publicly funded.
China, regarded as North Korea’s only ally, could be pressed to take the strongest possible action by blocking the transportation of fuel and oil but that could have grave consequences for the general population.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday a “creative” response was needed.
Key events are ahead this week with possible U.S. rate hike at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.
Bad weather Monday also delayed a USA plan for at least 24 hours to send warplanes from Guam to South Korea in a show of force, as it has done in the past after major provocations by North Korea.
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.
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Under the 32-year-old, who took over control of the isolated state after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011, North Korea has sped up its nuclear weapons programme despite United Nations economics sanctions being tightened in March. If nothing changes, North Korea is moving inexorably towards an operational nuclear arsenal that will threaten not only its neighbours but the United States and many other countries.
