South Korea’s military says it is analyzing whether North Korea has conducted its fifth nuclear test after seismic activity was reported Friday morning.
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So far, the four other nuclear tests conducted by North Korea have resulted in artificial earthquakes of increasing size.
National security adviser Susan Rice briefed President Barack Obama about the situation, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told pool reporters aboard Air Force One on the U.S. leader’s return trip from Asia.
In a statement following his return to Washington, Obama said he had consulted by phone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
North Korea has also been angered by a US and South Korean plan to install an anti-missile defence system in the South and by the allies’ massive annual joint military exercises, which are still taking place.
Han Yong-Sup, a professor at the Korea National Defense University and former adviser to the National Security Council standing committee and foreign ministry, said he believed North Korea had achieved miniaturization. “Our monitoring stations picked up an unusual seismic event in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) today at 00:30 (UTC)”.
Commercial satellite imagery of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site had shown significant movement and activity in recent weeks, according to the monitoring site 38North. North Korea said after its third test in 2013 it had created nuclear missiles capable of reaching the USA, but produced little proof, drawing skepticism from arms experts.
The three-minute broadcast said North Korea stood ready to “retaliate against the enemies”.
In its statement the North said it could now produce “at will, and as many as it wants, a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power”. We are now analyzing whether it was a successful test, the official said.
“The only thing that Kim Jong Un regime can gain from the nuclear tests is stronger sanctions from the global community and its isolation”.
China has come out in strong opposition of North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, a key denunciation for Pyongyang by its economic lifeline and only major ally.
“As to the possible sanctions to be adopted by UN Security Council”.
Philip Yun, executive director of Ploughshares Fund, a group that advocates nuclear disarmament, said that North Korea had become “increasingly aggressive”.
North Korea likely wanted to show the world that strong global sanctions following its fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year haven’t discouraged its efforts to advance its nuclear weapon and missile programs, according to Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the United Nations Security Council would meet later Friday.
“It’s China’s responsibility”, he told a news conference. Some 28,500 USA servicemembers are stationed in the South.
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The big question for the global community is whether it can match its condemnation of North Korea with action, according to Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Still, he said, “we can not have a situation where we’re unable to defend ourselves or our treaty allies against increasingly provocative behavior”.
