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.
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While the fears of World War 3 may be rising in response to North Korea’s nuclear tests, it appears that both South Korea and the United States are committed to finding a diplomatic solution before any real conflict could break out.
Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye talked by telephone, South Korea’s Blue House said, after a seismic event was recorded in North Korea that Seoul and Tokyo described as a nuclear test.
Flooding from heavy rain in North Korea has killed 133 people in its northeast while 395 are missing, with many homes and critical infrastructure destroyed, a United Nations agency said on Monday.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said Monday that South Korea and USA intelligence authorities believe North Korea has the ability to detonate another atomic device anytime at its main Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where the five previous atomic explosions took place.
South Korean officials believe that another test could be coming soon from Kim Jong Un, CNN reported.
South Korea is pushing for more sanctions against Pyongyang to close what it says were loopholes left in the last United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in March. The council has already approved a number of measures aimed at punishing the North for its nuclear activities.
Existing sanctions by the U.N. Security Council, the US and South Korea have hurt North Korea economically.
“China is not capable of persuading North Korea to give up nuclear development, because China’s efforts are not supported by the others”, it said in an editorial on Monday.
A USA special envoy for the isolated state, Sung Kim, will travel to Seoul on Monday.
China’s cooperation on sanctions is considered important because most North Korean trade flows to or through China.
“More and more, China treats North Korea as a threat to its national security and regional stability”, Mount said.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency said Sunday that the northern part of the country was experiencing the worst “climatic phenomenon” in more than 70 years, causing “huge losses”, and recovery work was underway.
The North may have even informed China of its intention to stage Friday’s blast, said Adam Cathcart an expert on Sino-North Korean relations at the University of Leeds in the UK.
Park said South Korea is seeking to adopt stronger sanctions against the DPRK rapidly in cooperation with the global community.
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He said the South’s military is on full combat-readiness to respond to “further nuclear tests, ballistic missile launches or land provocation”. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report more than 35,500 homes were damaged, two-thirds of them completely destroyed, and 107,000 people had been displaced by the floods.
