China urged “all sides” to keep calm and show restraint on Friday as South Korea resumed its loudspeaker broadcasts in retaliation of North Korea’s latest nuclear test.
Advertisement
The United States and South Korea are limited in their military options.
The report said that US officials familiar with intelligence reports of Wednesday’s test estimated the low yield of the detected blast to be between 5 kilotons to 7 kilotons – far less than would be detected in a two-stage thermonuclear blast, or hydrogen bomb.
During a telephone discussion on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, “There can not be business as usual” after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test. Cho also stressed that the South’s armed forces are prepared to meet any North Korean provocation.
Han said Carter “reaffirmed the US’s ironclad defense commitment to South Korea, and this includes all kinds of extended deterrence assets”.
In August 2015, South Korea briefly resumed propaganda broadcasts after accusing North Korea of planting land mines that exploded and maimed two South Korean soldiers.
Responding to a question, Kerry said he himself and the Obama Administration at the highest level has been pushing China for past few years to use its influence over North Korea from developing its nuclear weapons programme. Outside experts are skeptical the blast was a hydrogen bomb, but even a test of an atomic bomb would push North Korea closer to building a nuclear warhead small enough to place on a long-range missile.
Ministry officials refused to elaborate about what US military assets were under consideration, but they likely refer to B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters and nuclear-powered submarines.
North Korea said Wednesday it had successfully tested a “miniaturized” hydrogen bomb that elevated the country’s “nuclear might to the next level”.
Most of the North’s 24 million people are only allowed to watch state TV and listen to radio stations that broadcast programs full of praise of Kim and criticism of South Korea and the U.S. Analysts say this information control helps buttress Kim’s totalitarian rule, and that Pyongyang worries South Korean broadcasts could destabilize its political system.
“China had a particular approach that it wanted to make, that we agreed and respected to give them space to implement that”, Kerry told reporters.
The hydrogen bomb already is the global standard for the five nations with the greatest nuclear capabilities: the U.S., Russia, France, Britain and China.
Later Friday, South Korea was to announce the results of its first round of investigations of samples collected from sea operations to see if radioactive elements leaked from the North’s test, according to the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety.
The sound can carry 10 km (6 miles) into North Korea during the day and more than twice that at night, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Advertisement
Just how big a threat North Korea’s nuclear program poses is a mystery.
