North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (2nd right) provides field guidance at the February 11 Factory of the Ryongsung Joint Machinery Industries in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang May 7, 2015.
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Separately, South Korea’s military fired warning shots at a North Korean drone that briefly entered Southern airspace in the DMZ, sending the vehicle back into the North.
Any shooting on what is probably the world’s most heavily militarised border is rare and a cause for concern, but there was no exchange of fire and the incident showed no immediate sign of escalating.
While the drone did not get far, the sound of machine gun fire was a signal that the current inter-Korean standoff might be shifting in a different direction.
North Korea claimed it had tested a device on January 6, marking the country’s fourth nuclear test and first hydrogen bomb test, although some experts have cast doubt on whether it was indeed a true hydrogen bomb, claiming the explosion’s yield was too small for such a weapon.
The North has also been sending leaflets over the border beneath balloons since late on Tuesday, demanding that the South halt propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ.
“There is essentially no one now who could stop Kim if he gave an absurd instruction and turned stubborn”, said Oh Gyeong Seob, who researches North Korea’s leadership at the Sejong Institute near Seoul.
However, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo points out that Seoul has not been able to get in touch directly with Xi Jinping.
“We will make every diplomatic effort to bring about the strongest resolution that includes new sanctions stern enough to change the North’s attitude”, Park said, elaborating on Seoul’s efforts to cooperate with Washington and other countries as well as the United Nations Security Council.
North Korea’s ability to develop an H-bomb or its long-range capability to launch an attack on mainland USA are therefore significant but subsidiary characteristics of the main event, and now, they run the risk of deflecting attention from the principal issue: the growth of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, a remarkable feat achieved in a relatively short span of time and under conditions of grave economic duress.
Her comments at a televised news conference came a day before South Korea’s nuclear envoy was scheduled to meet with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing. South Korean military officials did not immediately confirm the report.
As well as working with the United Nations to adopt the “strongest” resolution to penalize North Korea, Seoul would also discuss additional “punitive sanctions” with the United States and its allies, she added. But in a telephone conversation with his South Korean counterpart last Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made it clear that Beijing supports dialogue to resolve the nuclear standoff.
Ms. Park said inaction would lead to “North Korea’s fifth and sixth nuclear tests”, and further threaten peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
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“The most powerful threat to totalitarianism is the power of truth”, she said. “It may be mistaken to expect that China will cooperate on severe sanctions given that South Korea and the U.S. are simply calling for pressure”.
