“Firmly opposing” North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, close ally China today lodged a diplomatic protest with the reclusive state and asked it to honour its commitment to denuclearisation and halt any move that could “aggravate the situation”.
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The Security Council in March imposed the toughest sanctions on North Korea in two decades, reflecting growing anger at Pyongyang’s nuclear test and rocket launch earlier this year in defiance of a ban on all nuclear-related activity. The United States said it would do what is necessary to defend its Asian allies.
“We can’t skip the Chuseok holiday just because we’re anxious”, she said.
Trump blamed the North’s test on Clinton.
Earlier, South Korea’s military detected a magnitude 5 natural disaster near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in northeastern North Korea. He didn’t refer to Friday’s event as a nuclear test. Japan and the US have dispatched jets to test for radiation.
South Korea’s President, Park Geun-hye, called the test an act of “fanatic recklessness”.
U.S. President Barack Obama has condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test, and vowed to seek possible new sanctions against Pyonyang.
“We will take additional significant steps, including new sanctions to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to its unlawful and unsafe actions”, Power said. United Nations sanctions that were approved by the Security Council in early March 2016 did not prevent Pyongyang from conducting its latest nuclear test or improving its missile technology.
“It is China’s firm stance to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, prevent nuclear proliferation and promote peace and stability in Northeast Asia”, it said.
Dion expressed support for South Korea and Japan, saying Canada “will examine further actions, in concert with the worldwide community, in response to North Korea’s behaviour”.
“At the same time, we must strengthen defense cooperation with our allies in the region; South Korea and Japan are critical to our missile defense system, which will protect us against a North Korean missile”, she said.
China also issued a statement saying it was “resolutely” opposed to the test, which came “despite the widespread objection of the worldwide community”, according to The Washington Post. The Russian Foreign Ministry insisted in a statement that “the North Korean side stop its unsafe escapades and unconditionally implement all resolutions of the United Nations Security Council”.
North Korea said its test will allow it to finally build, “at will”, stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons.
Could North Korea actually put a nuclear warhead atop a rocket and fire it at a potential adversary? It will raise serious worries in many world capitals that Pyongyang has moved another step closer to its goal of a nuclear-armed missile that could one day strike the USA mainland.
Diplomacy has so far failed.
President Barack Obama said in a statement Friday that the USA would pursue new sanctions at the United Nations along with its allies. He suggested that this could be because Kim, at 32, is young but also perhaps because recent high-level defections have raised speculation of cracks in the regime.
The development in North Korea comes at the end of a week in which Trump and Clinton clashed repeatedly over national security. “Canada condemns in the strongest terms North Korea’s announced detonation of a nuclear warhead”, Dion said.
The 5.0 magnitude natural disaster Friday is the largest of the four past quakes associated with North Korean nuclear tests, according to South Korea’s weather agency.
“The whole expectation eight or nine months ago was that sanctions were finally going to bring North Korea to heel, but clearly that is not the case”, said David Kang, a professor of global relations at the University of Southern California. “The U.S. will be made to clearly see how the DPRK rises imposingly out of chains of sanctions, blockade and pressure”.
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At 10 kilotons the blast approached the might of the bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945, experts in Seoul said. “North Korea’s provocations will do nothing but accelerate its self-destruction”.
