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.
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A council statement pledged to work on “appropriate measures” in response.
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.
North Korea’s pursuit of missiles and nuclear weapons is one of the most intractable foreign policy problems for the USA and South Korea.
All five nuclear tests have been conducted at the Punggye-ri site in the country’s northeast.
“North Korea has a tunnel where it can conduct an additional nuclear test”.
North Korea conducted its most powerful nuclear test Friday, inviting worldwide condemnation.
The yield from Friday’s test was estimated at 10 kilotons, nearly twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago.
“The North appears to have been making headway in its nuclear and missile capabilities as shown in recent various tests, which is probably why it did press ahead with them despite warnings from everywhere including China”.
A push for further sanctions was “laughable”, North Korea said on Sunday, vowing to continue to strengthen its nuclear power.
South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye said Kim was “mentally out of control”, blind to all the warnings of foreign powers and “the patience of the worldwide community has come to the limit”.
“I believe it is important to show the people that we are moving forward as one mind”, she said.
The UN Security Council has denounced North Korea’s nuclear test and US, France and Britain have pushed for new sanctions to be imposed on the country.
South Korea’s military put the force of Friday’s blast at 10 kilotonnes, but a United States expert said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested a yield of 20 to 30 kilotonnes.
The envoy will arrive in Seoul later on Monday and hold talks with his South Korean counterpart Kim Hong-Kyun on Tuesday morning, September 13.
The flight was scheduled to take place on Monday, but got delayed due to bad weather.
The US has been left scrambling to cope with the North’s surprising – and worrying – leaps forward in nuclear technology.
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Washington took similar military actions following previous atomic tests. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it would not comment on the report.
