South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified government official earlier on Monday saying Pyongyang had completed preparations for another nuclear test in its previously unused third tunnel at the Punggye-ri site in the north-east.
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It did not elaborate on what activities had been detected at the test site.
One possibility is that China could try to broker a deal to freeze North Korea’s development of new missiles and warheads as part of the USA and South Korea suspending joint military exercises, Tong said. It took two months of negotiations mainly between the USA and China.
North Korea is slamming the latest sanctions threatened by U.S. President Barack Obama after its fifth nuclear test, calling any sanctions “laughable”.
Although, North Korea has already responded by saying the thought of receiving another sanction is “laughable”. And, in a bid to deter any such attempt by Pyongyang, an official at the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) said that the United States will conduct a bomber flight over South Korea on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Bad weather Monday delayed for at least 24 hours a US plan to send warplanes from Guam to South Korea, as it has done after past provocations by North Korea.
Meanwhile, the government is fending off a push by conservative lawmakers to deploy nuclear weapons in South Korea as a defensive measure. He was named to the post at a major ruling party congress held in May.
Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert at the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China, said Beijing would likely adopt any new sanctions that the United Nations chose to take against North Korea following the test.
Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures and to take “additional significant steps, including new sanctions”.
The UK, US and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.
The global community is said to be considering its response, with the U.S. saying it is considering imposing sanctions alongside those imposed by the UN Security Council, Japan and South Korea.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday called for a “creative” response.
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China is North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, but has grown increasingly intolerant of its military actions and Kim Jong-un’s aggressive rhetoric. Furthermore, Pyongyang stressed that its nuclear capabilities were particularly important in order to “ensure genuine peace from the US”, which it believes is to blame for increasing the threat of a nuclear war.
