“An additional test could be conducted in a tunnel that branches off from the second tunnel or in the third tunnel, where preparations have been completed”, said ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun. It was the fifth that North Korea has done and the most powerful to date.
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The detection Friday of a nuclear warhead being detonated in North Korea placed new global pressure on China, Pyongyang’s economic lifeline and the closest thing it has to a political ally.
A South Korean defense ministry spokesman said that an unused tunnel at the test site could be used for a sixth test at any time, the BBC reported.
Critics, however, say China hasn’t done enough to tighten economic pressure on North Korea as punishment for its nuclear tests, which the Chinese government has publicly opposed.
A USA special envoy for the isolated state, Sung Kim, will travel to Seoul on Monday after discussing cooperation among neighbouring countries in Tokyo in the wake of the North’s latest nuclear test.
An underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile is pictured in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on April 24, 2016.
Punggye-ri, near the northeastern coast, was the site of the North’s five previous nuclear explosions.
Video: What Is North Korea’s Missile Capability? It said the United States was “the root cause” of the issue.
In a telephone conversation of the U.S, Japan and South Korea leaders, they have agreed to make significant measures and news sanctions against North Korea, CNN reported.
Hwang said during a meeting that North Korea’s “fanatical development of nuclear arms and missiles would become the poison that would hasten the destruction of its regime rather than consolidate it”.
North Korea said on Sunday a push for further sanctions following its latest nuclear test was “laughable”, and vowed to continue to strengthen its nuclear power. South Korean President Park Geun Hye also said that the provocations raise the risk of war on the Korean peninsula.
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Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told senior military officials on Monday that he absolutely can not tolerate North Korea having conducted two nuclear tests since the start of the year.
