Share

Chinese foreign minister: U.N. North Korea measures ‘necessary’

“They are bluffing that B-1Bs are enough for fighting an all-out nuclear war”.

Advertisement

Two of the powerful USA bombers, joined by United States and South Korean fighter jets, flew over Osan Air Base south of Seoul on Tuesday to show U.S. anger with North Korea’s nuclear weapons test four days earlier.

Last Friday North Korea conducted another nuclear test despite warnings from the global community, violating the UN Security Council resolutions and threatening world peace and security.

The Japanese government will seek to strengthen pressure over North Korea through unilateral measures as well as through the UN Security Council’s responses, said the resolution.

The revelations came as North Korea accused the United States of pushing the Korean peninsula to “the point of explosion” after it dispatched two huge bombers in a show of force against North Korea. But Hecker, a former director of the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons have been designed, has called North Korea’s uranium enrichment programme “their new nuclear wildcard”, because Western experts do not know how advanced it is.

But nuclear researcher Siegfried Hecker, who has visited North Korea’s nuclear facilities in the past, wrote on the 38 North website that the communist state may have sufficient fissile material to have about 20 bombs by the end of this year and add seven more per year.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with South Korea’s Yun by phone, expressing Beijing’s opposition to the North’s latest nuclear test but also reiterating opposition to the planned deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THADD) anti-missile system in the South, China’s foreign ministry said. It also pointed to the latest round of annual U.S.

China, the North’s chief ally, backed the March resolution but is more resistant to harsh new sanctions this time after the United States and South Korea chose to deploy a sophisticated anti-missile system in the South, which China adamantly opposes.

By 2009, the North had likely acquired the technology to be able to expand the uranium project indigenously, Joshua Pollack, editor of the US -based Nonproliferation Review, has said.

Advertisement

North Korea was joined by China in fighting against the South during the Korean War, which remains highly influential in terms of regional partnerships – as evidenced by the presence of almost 30,000 US troops in South Korea. They focused mainly on USA involvement this time.

A US B-1B Lancer center is escorted by US F-16 fighter jets as it flies over the Osan Air Base aiming at reinforcing the US commitment to its key ally in Pyeongtaek South Korea on Tuesday. — AFP