North Korea’s boast of a technologically game-changing nuclear test defied both tough worldwide sanctions and long-standing diplomatic pressure to curb its nuclear ambitions.
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Clinton said she will protect allies and treaty partners in the region including equipping them with missile defense systems.
“I think we have an opening here that we haven’t had for the last several years that I intend to do everything I can to take advantage of”, Clinton said.
During his stay in NY, the country’s top diplomat will hold a meeting with his counterparts from the US and Japan to discuss how to impose stronger sanctions on Pyongyang, the ministry said.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the U.S. will never “accept North Korea as a nuclear state”.
“I count on the Security Council to remain united and take appropriate action”.
“We are opposed to testing and we believe that it is more urgent than ever to work together to ensure denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”, Liu said.
He did not say whether he had a plan to address North Korea’s claim the test will allow it to build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons.
Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the USA presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.
Earlier in the day, South Korea, the USA and Japan held a three-party video conference to discuss ways to beef up cooperative measures and the mutual exchange of information regarding North Korea.
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“Clinton promised to work to end North Korea’s nuclear programme as secretary of state, yet the programme has only grown in strength and sophistication”, Miller added in his statement. It marks one more step in North Korea’s efforts to develop the missiles and miniaturized warheads needed to reach its perceived enemies.
Pyongyang perceives neighbouring South Korea and the U.S. as its main enemies, and said its Friday’s test – which caused a 5.0-magnitude seismic event – proved its scientists were capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile.
“Our nuclear scientists staged a nuclear explosion test on a newly developed nuclear warhead at the country’s northern nuclear test site”, a North Korean TV presenter said.
Speaking with some frustration, he said that when it comes to the Korean peninsula, the secretary-general has no mandate from either the U.N. Security Council or the General Assembly, and he has not been able to appoint a special envoy or a special adviser on Korean issues.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this further provocative action by North Korea”, she said. Council members also denounced the test, calling it a threat to worldwide security.
“The global community, the UN Security Council and especially the other six-party powers must hold North Korea accountable for this latest act and heighten the pressure on North Korea especially through tightening of sanctions commensurate with the gravity of this act”, he said. The North’s fourth test was an estimated six kilotons.
The RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded USA think tank, said in a 2010 report that the detonation of a 10-kilton nuclear weapon in the South Korean capital of Seoul could cause more than 200,000 deaths and would easily overwhelm doctors and beds in hospitals throughout the country.
In the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, residents were delighted.
The test – Pyongyang’s fifth and most powerful – had enough force to “rip the heart out of a city”, one expert said.
“The North Korean missile tests are a risky, reckless, provocative act”, he told reporters on the sidelines of the Pacific Forum. The U.S. military is reported to send a WC-135 radiation detection plane to the East Sea to collect radioactive samples.
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Japan’s Abe said such a nuclear test could not be tolerated.
