Japan Defence Minister Tomomi Inada said the Pyongyang regime’s advances in mobile ballistic missile technology posed a grave threat to Japan.
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The new resolution authorized United Nations member states to inspect North Korean cargo and destroy items suspected of being connected to weapons development.
The White House said the president “reiterated the unbreakable U.S. commitment to the security of our allies in Asia and around the world”.
“We will continue to put some of the toughest pressure North Korea has ever been under as a effect of this behavior”, Obama said. North Korea carried out its fifth and most powerful nuclear test today, sparking condemnation from regional leaders. Alongside the nuclear test, the North Korean military has sent a number of projectiles and missiles into the sea since March and kept up its anti-American and anti-South Korean rhetoric. “However, it is unclear if this activity is directly related to preparations for a fifth nuclear test”.
The US Air Force is expected to start flying the WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft in the coming hours to take air samples and see if it can determine a nuclear event occurred.
The estimated yield of the fourth nuclear test was six kilotons.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., said it appeared to be the biggest of North Korea’s five tests.
North Korea blames the US and South Korea for its nuclear programme, saying long-running “hostility” from Seoul and Washington to its government makes the development crucial for the small country’s survival. Dubbed as being close to a “terminating” resolution, the Resolution 2270 was supposed to put an end to North Korea’s violations, but as Pyongyang shows no will to abide by the rules, many have expressed the opinion that there’s room for more punitive measures.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters Friday that “there is a possibility that North Korea has forced a nuclear test”, citing the temblor showing wave patterns from a non-seismic source.
“We must lodge a strong protest”, he said.
Confirmation of a fifth nuclear test by Pyongyang came after global monitors detected unusual seismic activity near a north-eastern test site.
The meteorological agency detected a magnitude 5.3 shaking in North Korea, near the country’s nulear test facility.
China’s environment ministry began emergency radiation monitoring along its borders with North Korea in northeast China, state television reported.
The United States places North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on its sanctions blacklist.
According to Yonhap, Park also held a telephone conversation with US President Barack Obama over the nuclear test.
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A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, Ned Price, says Washington is aware of seismic activity on the Korean Peninsula in the vicinity of a known North Korean nuclear test site. The U.S. Geological Survey saw the tremor as a magnitude-5.3 quake.
