An explosion with a magnitude of 5.3 was detected in North Korea at 9 a.m. on Friday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
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South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted unnamed South Korean officials as saying it was highly likely to have been a nuclear test. It said the natural disaster appeared to be artificial in nature.
The most powerful test came just 8 months after Pyongyang detonated what it claimed was its first hydrogen bomb, the fourth of its nuclear device tests, on January 6.
The North’s boast of a technologically game-changing nuclear test defies both tough worldwide sanctions and long-standing diplomatic pressure to curb its nuclear ambitions.
North Korea is also one of four countries that have not joined the Chemical Weapons Convention under the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which has destroyed 93 per cent of all declared chemical weapons since 1997.
He said China, North Korea’s economic lifeline, could play an important role to that end. On Monday, it fired three medium-range missiles during a G20 summit in neighbouring China that was attended by U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders.
South Korea’s President Park Geun-Hye condemned the test as an act of “self-destruction” that would deepen the North’s isolation.
North Korea is banned by United Nation sanctions from testing any nuclear or missile technology.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said such a nuclear test could not be tolerated.
In addition to January’s nuclear test, North Korea in March claimed to have miniaturized nuclear warheads and has tested several ballistic missiles, including some launched from a submarine.
North Korea’s state TV said Friday that the test elevated the country’s nuclear arsenal and it is “now capable of mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic rockets”.
The 5th Seoul Defence Dialogue, organised by South Korea’s Defence Ministry, drew about 500 participants from 34 countries.
A test would be another slap in the face to the North’s chief ally China and diminishes any chance of a resumption of six-country talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme.
It would mark the fifth nuclear detonation by North Korea following the first in October 2006, the second in May 2009, the third in February 2013 and the fourth in January this year. Another nuclear test would be the latest in a long series of events that test the current global approach to trying to contain the North’s nuclear ambitions.
Though Beijing’s relations have been strained over Pyongyang’s growing nuclear ambitions, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has refrained from severely punishing Kim. It says there was no radioactive leakage or adverse environmental impact caused by the test.
Some Korean observers say that because Kim Jong Un’s regime is underpinned by being a full-fledged nuclear state, no amount of financial squeeze will stop him.
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Sanctions, including ones targeting Kim Jong Un personally, have had little effect.
