Britain today summoned North Korea’s ambassador and gave him a dressing down over the pariah state’s claim to have exploded a hydrogen bomb.
Advertisement
North Korea’s first three nuclear tests, from 2006 to 2013, were A-bombs on roughly the same scale as the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which together killed more than 200,000 people.
But the United States has joined experts in questioning whether the blast was sufficient enough for a hydrogen bomb test.
A US government source said the United States believes North Korea had set off the latest in a series of tests of old-fashioned atomic bombs of which it has dozens.
Obama also reaffirmed the “unshakeable U.S. commitment” to the security of South Korea and Japan, according to the statements.
“Through the test conducted with indigenous wisdom, technology and efforts [North Korea] fully proved that the technological specifications of the newly developed H-bomb for the goal of test were accurate and scientifically verified the power of smaller H-bomb”, the country’s official news agency reported. B-2 and B-52 bombers are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Their consultations followed a meeting of the 15-member UN Security Council in NY which, with backing from China, Pyongyang’s sole major ally, strongly condemned the test and said it would begin work on a new UN draft resolution that would contain “further significant measures”.
Four rounds of United Nations sanctions have aimed at reining in the North’s nuclear and missile development programs, but Pyongyang has ignored them and moved ahead to modernize its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.
South Korea announced on Thursdayit will retaliate against the claimed thermonuclear test by restarting propaganda broadcasts on loudspeakers across the border, something Kim Jong-un’s government has previously described as an act of war.
In August, Seoul signed a package of agreements with Pyongyang on easing the standoff, which included a stop to broadcasts unless an “abnormal” situation should occur again.
Acquisition of a working H-bomb – with a destructive power that dwarfs the bombs it has tested in the past – would represent a massive leap forward in the North’s nuclear weapons capability.
Asked about North Korea, Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump told CNN that “China should solve that problem” or face trade retaliation from the United States.
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and author of “Solving the North Korean Nuclear Puzzle”, told NBC that the test may have just been a bluff.
Because of the way that they are made, hydrogen bombs are usually much more powerful than less advanced atomic bombs.
In a mark of protest against the test, South Korea will limit entry to the Kaesong industrial complex jointly operated with North Korea to minimal production staff, said an official from Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
Joseph Cirincione, president of the global security firm Ploughshares Fund, noted that the test only yielded 6-7 kiloton.
Hydrogen bombs use a two-step process of fission and fusion that releases substantially more energy.
Advertisement
Some analysts have suggested it is possible Pyongyang tested a “boosted” atomic bomb, which uses some fusion fuel to increase the yield of the fission reaction.
