NEWS BRIEF North Korea conducted its second nuclear test this year, the reclusive country’s government said Friday.
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South Korean President Park Geun-hye called North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un’s regime “fanatically reckless”, noting the test was in clear violation of the United Nations Security Council resolution.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry released a statement Friday criticizing the North for its “disregard” of worldwide objections. It also follows the almost simultaneous launch of three midrange ballistic missiles that flew about 620 miles and landed off the coast of Japan on Monday as world leaders held the G-20 summit in nearby China.
Obama reiterated the US commitment to the security of America’s allies in Asia, and said he would continue to “ensure provocative actions from North Korea are met with serious consequences”.
The Japanese government has lodged an official protest against the nuclear test, which was sent to Pyongyang via Chinese diplomatic channels, Kyodo News Agency reported.
“The latest test shows that North Korea developed its nuclear weapons to be smaller and lighter, making such weapons a realistic threat”, Rep. Yeom Dong-yeol, the spokesman of the ruling party, said.
By comparison, the nuclear bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in World War II was 15 kilotons.
It began emergency radiation monitoring along its north-eastern border shared with North Korea, state media reported.
Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was the most powerful nuclear test conducted by North Korea so far.
Pyongyang test-fired three missiles Monday as world powers gathered for a G20 meeting in China, with leader Kim Jong-Un hailing the tests as “perfect”, and US President Barack Obama warning it would only up the pressure.
The South Korean president said the DPRK’s nuclear test proves the “fanatic recklessness” of Pyongyang adhering to nuclear development in a thorough defiance of the global community’s unified will not to accept the DPRK’s nuclear program.
Chinese Foreign Ministry, in a statement strongly criticized North Korea for carrying out a test with disregard for global objections.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff later said the detonation had a yield of about 10 kilotonnes, making it the North’s “strongest nuclear test ever”.
Initial analysis of North Korea’s January test estimated a yield of just 6 kilotons.
Last January’s test brought a response in the form of a U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution adopted two months later.
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“We can’t deny the possibility that North Korea is miniaturizing a device to build a warhead”, Inada said at a press briefing in Tokyo.
