Yonhap said Seoul had deployed missiles, artillery and other weapons systems near the border to deal with any possible North Korean provocation.
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In retaliation for the nuclear test, South Korea began blaring propaganda messages at Friday noon from speakers across the border into the DPRK, which called it an “act of declaring war”.
The bomber transferred from the U.S. military base of Guam in the Pacific Ocean and entered the South Korean airspace in the area of Osan in the Gyeonggi Province.
“North Korea’s nuclear test is a blatant violation of its global obligations”, Harris said.
It was escorted by a South Korean F-15 and US F-16 fighters.
The ability of the U.S., South Korea and Japan to change North Korea’s behavior has always been constrained by two factors: the reluctance of China, North Korea’s chief patron and economic partner, to crack down on its errant neighbor; and competing agendas among the U.S. and its allies. While Pyongyang claimed to have tested a new thermonuclear bomb, experts agreed that the device tested was an atomic bomb similar to those present in three previous tests.
DPRK leader Kim Jong Un says the test was a self-defensive step against a United States threat of nuclear war.
But South Korean media suggested the footage was an edited compilation of the North’s third SLBM test, conducted last month in the Sea of Japan, and a different ballistic missile test from 2014.
Lt Gen Terrence O’Shaughnessy said the USA was “steadfast” in its commitment to defending South Korea, and that includes “extended deterrence provided by our conventional forces and our nuclear umbrella”.
The North regularly accuses the USA and its ally South Korea of warmongering.
Kim’s comments were in line with the North’s official rhetoric blaming the United States for deploying nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula to justify its nuclear programme but were the first by its leader since Wednesday’s blast.
The statement also said that the bilateral flight mission demonstrates the strength of the alliance between the USA and the Republic of Korea and the resolve of both nations to maintain stability and security on the Korean Peninsula.
Kenneth W. Ford, an American physicist who worked on the first American hydrogen bomb, told the New York Times on Thursday that, compared to American H-bombs, the alleged North Korean bomb created too small of an natural disaster. The initial USA intelligence assessment “is not consistent with North Korean claims of a successful hydrogen bomb test”, said Josh Earnest, White House Press Secretary on Wednesday.
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Klug reported from Seoul.
