“This explosion is mainly for the United States to see”.
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North Korea weapons that pose the gravest threat to the South are Pyongyang’s Scud missiles, with a range of 190-310 miles, as well as the Rodong missile that can reach a distance of up to 745 miles.
Chinese children ice skated at a pond overlooking the border, but very few North Koreans could be seen in the village on the other side.
Acquisition of a working H-bomb – with a destructive power that dwarfs the fission bombs it has tested in the past – would represent a massive leap forward in the North’s nuclear weapons capability.
(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man). A visitor walks by a map of the Korean peninsula at the exhibition hall of the unification observatory in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016. North Korea’s declaration that it had tested a hydrogen bomb fo…
In announcing that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, North Korea said it had “joined the rank of advanced nuclear states” like Russia, France and the United States that also boast thermonuclear devices.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned North Korea’s announcement, calling it “profoundly destabilizing for regional security”. The Aug. 25 agreement between North and South Korea states that “all propaganda broadcasts around the military demarcation line must stop, unless an abnormal case occurs”. South Korea’s Defense Ministry couldn’t confirm the reports.
But North Korea believes the United States will only negotiate if Pyongyang can demonstrate its strength through its weapons.
The broadcasts include Korean pop songs, world news and weather forecasts as well as criticism of the North’s nuclear test, its troubled economy and dire human rights conditions, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry.
After tensions escalated following the landmine explosion, the two countries agreed to halt their broadcasts and avoid military confrontation. It is surmised that the government was reacting to conservative voices criticizing the response of the Park Geun-hye administration as being “too soft”.
The order to test was personally signed by leader Kim Jong-Un, with a handwritten message to begin 2016 with the “thrilling sound of the first hydrogen bomb explosion”.
Ministry officials refused to elaborate about what US military assets were under consideration, but they likely refer to B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters and nuclear-powered submarines. B-2 and B-52 bombers are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The source, who has contacts in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and correctly predicted the North’s first nuclear test in 2006, said the tests would go on until the North’s demand for a treaty was met.
“The initial analysis is not consistent with the claim the regime has made of a successful hydrogen bomb test”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
South Korea’s spy service said it thought the estimated explosive yield from the blast was much smaller than what even a failed hydrogen bomb detonation would produce.
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On the same day, in the National Defense, Foreign Affairs and Unification Committees of the National Assembly, Saenuri Party lawmakers unanimously called for the recommencement of the broadcasts, and in the party’s Supreme Council, floor leader Won Yoo-chul even suggested nuclear armament, saying that it was time to acquire nuclear weapons for peace and self-defense.
