The birthdays of former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the current leader’s grandfather and father, are celebrated with pomp and circumstance in the country; Kim Jong Un’s presumed birthday has been much more low-key during his reign. It claimed the last, on Tuesday, was a hydrogen bomb, though the White House has shed doubt on that assertion.
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North Korea didn’t immediately react, but its response could be especially harsh because of the high emotions surrounding the likely birthday of Kim, who is believed to be in his early 30s.
At that time, Seoul said it would resume the broadcasts in case of “abnormal” situations. “We have had meetings, we have had constant consultations”, Kerry said. “And I think we should also arm ourselves with nuclear weapons”.
South Korean officials said stopping the broadcasts was the main reason the North agreed at that time to end an armed standoff and express regret over a landmine explosion that injured South Korean soldiers.
Lee Kwang-sun thinks otherwise. North Korea denied the mine planting and threatened to attack South Korean loudspeakers.
To the outside world, the idea that broadcasts that also showcase freedom and democracy, and how people are allowed to enjoy love and life, can anger a country enough to risk going to war might seem preposterous.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that frontline troops, near 11 sites where propaganda loudspeakers started blaring messages at noon (0300 GMT), were on highest alert.
South Korea said DPRK’s nuclear test was in violation of the August 25 agreement, reached on August 25 previous year after marathon inter-Korean talks between top-level military advisors to their respective leaders.
(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man). A visitor uses binoculars to see North Korean territory from the unification observatory in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016. In 1994 North Korea pledged that it would freeze its nuclear program when it signed the bilateral Agreed Framework with the US.
In the North Korean capital, where CNN is the only USA broadcaster operating, officials say the announcement has triggered an outpouring of national pride.
He says, “We want them to abandon any nuclear activities and comply with the global commitments and obligations”. Until they do that they’re not going to achieve prosperity, they’re not going to achieve the security they desire.
North Korean government officials told CNN’s Will Ripley, who is in Pyongyang, that they are not afraid of more sanctions; they said that they’ve lived for years with the crippling measures levied against them and are prepared to tighten their belts even more.
Aucoin spoke aboard the USS Ronald Reagan at the Yokosuka naval base.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday he had made clear in a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that China’s approach to North Korea had not succeeded. He said that China’s approach to North Korea had failed.
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“My greatest concern is not so much whether or not they actually tested a hydrogen bomb, but rather that they tested at all”, Siegfried Hecker, the former Los Alamos Laboratory director, said in an interview published yesterday in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
