Seoul resumed loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea on Friday in response to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test, with recent South Korean hit songs.
Advertisement
On Friday, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China is determined to advance denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and settle the nuclear issue through six-party talks.
“North Korea’s fourth nuclear test is in direct violation of its commitments and responsibilities to the worldwide community, such as multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions”, Cho said. But today in my conversation with the Chinese, I made it very clear: “That has not worked and we can not continue business as usual”.
In a statement, North Korea’s state news agency said it will not give up its nuclear programme as long as the United States maintained what it called “its stance of aggression”.
People watch a news report on North Korea’s first hydrogen bomb test at a railroad station in Seoul on January 6, 2016.
The vast majority of North Korea’s business dealings are with China, which bought 90 percent of the isolated country’s exports in 2013, according to data compiled by South Korea’s International Trade Association.
South Korean troops, near about 10 sites where loudspeakers started blaring propaganda Friday, were on the highest alert, but have yet to detect any unusual movement from the North Korean military along the border, an official from Seoul’s Defense Ministry, who refused to be named, citing office rules, said Saturday. When South Korea briefly resumed propaganda broadcasts in August after an 11-year break, Seoul says the two Koreas exchanged artillery fire.
The dictator’s actions were widely condemned around the world and brought calls for more sanctions on North Korea.
North Korea is seeking a peace treaty with the United States, China and South Korea to formally end the Korean War and will not stop its nuclear tests until it gets one, a person who relayed that message from North Korea to China told Reuters.
Financial sanctions were mostly meaningless, Li said, adding that no major Chinese bank still dealt with the North and that authorities had cracked down on small financial institutions in the border town of Dandong, a gateway to the North.
On Tuesday, North Korea announced it had successfully detonated its first hydrogen bomb.
“A priority must be to find ways to both further pressure North Korea to limit its nuclear weapons capabilities and engage it diplomatically”, said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. And he expects the committee will consider and vote on this worthy plan sometime soon.
Yonhap also said new initiatives on cooperation with North Korea will be pushed back.
The Obama administration said it believes a nuclear blast took place, but on Thursday cast increasing doubt on the claim that it was a hydrogen bomb.
Ministry officials refused to elaborate about what USA military assets were under consideration, but they likely refer to B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters and nuclear-powered submarines.
Advertisement
It was unclear how more sanctions would deter North Korea, which has conducted four nuclear tests since 2006.
