North Korea said it conducted a “higher level” nuclear test last week that will allow it to build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons.
Advertisement
North Korea is capable of detonating another nuclear device at any time at the country’s main test site, South Korea has said.
His comments followed the DPRK’s announcement on Friday that it successfully staged an explosion test of a nuclear warhead that can be mounted on ballistic missiles “at will”.
His spokesman Moon Sang-gyun, said Monday if another nuclear test happened, it could come from a second or third site at Punggye-ri, where Friday’s test took place.
North Korea’s pursuit of missiles and nuclear weapons is one of the most intractable foreign policy problems for the US and South Korea.
The first shaft at the test site was used to detonate the North’s first nuclear device in 2006, with the second tunnel complex being used for the 2009, 2013 and two 2016 tests.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing unidentified government sources, also reported signs that the North had finished test preparations in one previously unused tunnel at Punggy-ri. Seoul has warned that Pyongyang is ready to conduct yet another nuclear test in the near future.
He also suggested the U.S. may launch its own sanctions.
In response to North Korea’s most recent test the U.S. promised “the strongest possible” measures to counter “the provocative and unacceptable behaviour by the North Koreans”.
A U.S. special envoy for the isolated state, Sung Kim, will travel to Seoul on Monday.
The nuclear programme’s “miraculous successes” mean that the North has not only United States bases in the Asia-Pacific but also the U.S. mainland “in its clutches”, ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Monday.
The allies are now spearheading a campaign to craft a fresh batch of stronger sanctions at the UN Security Council, while exploring independent steps to back up the worldwide resolution.
Meanwhile the Global Times, run by the Chinese Communist Party, rejected the suggestion by the United States that Beijing was responsible for the North’s pursuit of nuclear arms.
Both China and Russian Federation backed sanctions imposed in March following the North’s January nuclear test, but their apparent ambivalence about fresh sanctions cast doubt on the Security Council’s ability to quickly form a consensus.
US Forces Korea (USFK) said the flight had been delayed a day because of bad weather and would arrive tomorrow, identifying the planes only as “strategic aircraft”.
Advertisement
Should Washington again launch a war against it, Pyongyang would “blow up the land of America and thus finally root out the source of war on the earth”.
