North Korean leader Kim jong unstated his nation might quickly perform a warhead ensure that you check start ballistic missiles able to transporting the state KCNA news agency, atomic warheads. The date of the test wasn’t given.
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North Korea has carried out nuclear tests in 2006, 2006, 2013 and in January 2016. But Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, said it was generally assumed that Pyongyang had been working on the challenge for some time.
All cargo going to and from North Korea, which has a population around 24 million, must now be inspected, whereas previously states only had to inspect such shipments if they had reasonable grounds to believe they contained illicit goods. A spokesman at South Korea’s defense ministry said Tuesday that North Korea has not mastered missile re-entry technology for its ICBMs.
In February, the North came under more global condemnation after it launched a long-range rocket carrying what it called a satellite. It hasn’t yet tested a rocket with a re-entry device.
North Korea has never tested an ICBM, although it has displayed such a missile, known as the KN-08, during recent mass military parades in Pyongyang. USA officials have identified the KN-08 as the most serious potential threat to the American mainland.
On Tuesday, North Korean State Media announced the plan to test-fire a fifth nuclear missile.
South Korean President, Park Geun-Hye, warned North Korea should be ready to accept the consequences if it did not curb its nuclear ambitions.
On Sunday, a North Korean nuclear scientists reportedly claimed they could “wipe out Manhattan” with the latest hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) they had developed.
In January, the North conducted its fourth nuclear test, which it claimed was of a powerful hydrogen bomb.
“If the North continues to make provocations despite the stern warnings made by our military, it is inevitable for us to roll out a strict response that may lead to the destruction of the Pyongyang regime”, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, according to Yonhap News Agency.
Tensions are high on the Korean peninsula as South Korean and U.S. troops stage annual military exercises that Seoul has described as the largest ever.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is now in negotiations with China to put additional pressure on North Korea and force them to comply with United Nations nuclear and ballistic missile regulations.
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On the exact nature of the “tests” in the offing, Cho said South Korea and the US have been sharing relevant intelligence and keeping close tabs on how the situation evolves but declined to go into detail, citing the sensitivity of the issue.
