South Korea’s Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun refused to say what evidence pointed to another possible North Korea test, but he told reporters that South Korean and USA intelligence officials believe North Korea has the ability to detonate another atomic device any time.
Advertisement
Yonhap news agency, citing unidentified Seoul government sources, reported Monday there were signs the North had finished test preparations in an unused tunnel.
North Korea said on Sunday a push for further sanctions following its latest nuclear test was “laughable”, and vowed to continue to strengthen its nuclear power.
“North Korea continues to present growing threats to the region, to our allies and to ourselves”.
The US threatened unilateral sanctions on Sunday following a US special envoy meeting with Japanese officials in the wake of the test.
The military has determined that the missiles were launched from North Korea but have not yet posed a threat to North America.
Specific details of the United States unilateral sanctions have yet to be decided, Kim said, speaking to reporters in Tokyo.
North Korea has repeatedly rejected China’s entreaties not to test nuclear warheads, and Pyongyang officials appear to be exploiting tensions between China and South Korea over THAAD, said Tong Zhao, an associate at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center think tank. News of South Korea’s attack plan for the North is believed to have been revealed to parliament following Friday’s nuclear test.
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.
Obama became the first USA president to make an official visit to Laos, paying tribute to survivors maimed by some 80 million unexploded bombs America dropped on the Southeast Asian country decades ago and pledging US help to finally clean them up.
American defense officials expressed concern Friday that the tests demonstrate a new level of sophistication, though nongovernment experts in the USA are still hungering for evidence or formal analyses of where North Korean technology and industrial capability stand.
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.
The North carried out its fifth nuclear test on Friday, claiming that it had successfully detonated a nuclear warhead, and drawing global condemnation.
It comes after the South warned it would reduce the North’s capital Pyongyang to ashes if Kim Jong-un’s forces attacked.
Advertisement
People watch a TV broadcasting a suspected nuclear test held by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, Sept. 9, 2016.
