After North Korea’s nuclear test on Friday, South Korea unveiled its plan of tackling Pyongyang if there was any threat perception. Pentagon officials say that as they prepare the agenda of key military issues for the next president, North Korea is near the top of the list.
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South Korea’s USA envoy Sung Kim said on Sunday that the South is working closely with the Security Council to devise strong measures against North Korea’s behavior.
(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon). South Korean army soldiers ride their armored vehicles during an annual exercise in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016.
South Korea has said last week’s nuclear test – the country’s fifth – was a 10-kilotonne bomb, which is nearly double the six-kilotonne nuke it tested back in January. The statement also claimed that North Korea’s “standardization” of this warhead design will allow production, “at will”, of “smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power”.
All of Pyongyang’s nuclear device tests took place in Punggye-ri.
Shortly after the North’s test, South Korea’s leading military intelligence officer Kim Hwang Rok said North Korea has two or three unused tunnels at the Punggy-ri test site from where it can conduct an additional test.
Video: What Is North Korea’s Missile Capability?
North Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ri Yong Ho, has arrived in Beijing and was seen entering North Korea’s embassy, Kyodo News reported today. Yonhap did not elaborate.
For the United States and its Asian allies, the North Korean weapons tests are a stark warning that the regional threat level is rising, despite U.N. sanctions against North Korea.
But Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for American Progress, said China has more leverage, and more reason to act, than its officials sometimes make it seem publicly.
“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.
South Korean officials have said North Korea could be ready to conduct another nuclear test at any time. It previously called Park a “prostitute”. That marked a change after many years when North Korea did not send its foreign minister to the NY gathering. Regional disarmament-for-aid talks on the North’s nuclear ambitions have not been held since late 2008. According to the Japanese account of the conversation, Abe told Obama that Japan viewed the North Korean test as a “grave threat” to its security and a flagrant violation of United Nations sanctions.
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The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The United States, Britain and France – three of the five veto-wielding permanent members – pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.
