Sung Kim, the U.S. special envoy to North Korea said the UN Security Council along with Japan, South Korea and the United States are examining additional unilateral measures.
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The global community needs to make sure that its sanctions, including ones introduced in March as the toughest ever against North Korea as well as even harsher steps that will likely be discussed in the wake of the latest blast, are indeed without loopholes that would keep enabling Pyongyang to spend resources on its nuclear and missile programs.
South Korea’s Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun told reporters that South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials believe the North has the ability to detonate another atomic device any time, but declined to give further details.
Pyongyang is facing even tougher sanctions from the United Nations Security Council over last Friday’s test, the reclusive state’s most powerful to date.
The country’s military also said it was implementing a new system which will allow them to “punish and retaliate” against North Korea’s leadership if it endangers the country with nuclear weapons.
The decade since North Korea’s first nuclear weapons test in 2006 shows that merely hoping that the isolated and reclusive regime will cave in under the weight of worldwide sanctions won’t work. The U.N. Security Council is strongly condemning North Korea’s l.
After North Korea’s nuclear test on Friday, South Korea unveiled its plan of tackling Pyongyang if there was any threat perception. Officials say Tokyo will be working with the USA and South Korea to seek tougher worldwide sanctions while urging China to ensure its compliance with the already adopted measures.
Reports of another nuclear test being conducted soon after were rife, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. South Korea believes Kim Jong Un is preparing to hit the button on another test.
It said the USA was “the root cause” of the issue.
The South Korean defense ministry has also presented the “Korea Massive Punishment & Retaliation” to the national assembly, “aimed at wiping a certain section of Pyongyang completely off the map”, Yonhap quoted a military source as saying.
The US has been left scrambling to cope with the North’s surprising – and worrying – leaps forward in nuclear technology. The bottom line should be to cut off worldwide funding for North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
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The crux of the issue lies with the United States, not China, and China has made many efforts to uphold peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, ministry spokesman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing in Beijing. “The alliance is taking steps each and every day to defend the Republic of Korea and we are always maintaining a high state of readiness”, added the USFK spokesperson.
