The Soviet Union was the first country to test a hydrogen bomb in 1961.
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State media indicated Thursday that North Korea has added the hydrogen bomb to its arsenal, a development that, if true, would represent a major leap in its nuclear weapons capabilities.
Experts and intelligence community haven’t yet confirmed whether North Korea has indeed designed and developed an H-bomb.
The official Korea Central News Agency carried a report that Kim made the admission during a tour of the Phyongchon Revolutionary Site, a historic place that commemorates the work of his father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, according to NBC News. “I think it seems to be developing it”, Lee said, according to a report by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency Thursday.
Last year, eleven council members voted in favor of a meeting on human rights in the North. The UN General Assembly also passed a resolution to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court and to punish those responsible.
“But the UN Security Council’s regular debate of the human rights abuses in North Korea as a threat to worldwide peace and security raises the political cost of inaction”, the watchdog said in a press release.
A hydrogen bomb is significantly more powerful than an atomic bomb, like the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S.in World War II. Despite U.N. sanctions, North Korea has pressed forward with its missile and nuclear programs. But analysts were doubtful of Kim Jong Un’s latest bellicose claim, saying the young leader appeared primarily concerned with trying to bolster his legitimacy. Kim Il Sung reportedly test-fired a submachine gun at the shooting range at the site soon after the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945.
A South Korean intelligence official said Kim’s claim was nothing more than “rhetoric” for domestic consumption. And it has repeatedly threatened to destroy the South, as well as the United States.
Recent satellite images show construction of new fuel/oxidizer propellant storage bunkers at Sohae’s launch pad and engine-test stand, according to 38 North, a website run by Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies that monitors North Korean activities.
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China is likely to veto such a move, diplomats said. “Their objective could be to pressure the global community”. “[The Treasury Department] is committed to exposing North Korea’s global proliferation network and excluding these facilitators from the worldwide financial system”.
