In announcing its nuclear test, North Korea called it “part of responsive measures to threats and sanctions from the USA and enemies denying our strategic position as a nuclear state”.
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U.S., European and Chinese seismological agencies reported that the tremor was recorded at 0030 GMT at surface level.
South Korea’s National Security Council was also holding an emergency meeting following the test, a spokesman for the president’s office said.
The China Earthquake Networks Center said the tremor was a suspected explosion.
The official said the tremor felt after the test put the yield of this test at about 10 kilotons, which is believed to be Pyongyang’s most powerful nuclear detonation to date.
Geneva: Major global powers on Friday expressed concern at North Korea’s testing a nuclear device in contravention of UN sanctions and while the U.S. and Russian Federation demanded that Pyongyang respect UN Security Council resolutions, Germany termed the nuclear test as an irresponsible action aimed at destabilising the region.
TV screens show a news program with an image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Yongsan Electronic Market in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016.
In Asia, concerns over North Korea’s latest nuclear test hit stocks in South Korea.
This is shaping up to be the busiest year ever for North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. The test occurred Friday morning local time and triggered a magnitude 5.3 seismic event.
United Nations approved sanctions against North Korea included an export ban of the country’s natural resources such as silver, coal, iron, gold and titanium.
We see very clearly that the global efforts to dissuade the North from developing nuclear weapons have been a colossal failure. “Anything that raises tension isn’t good news for land prices here, but otherwise our life will be the same and we are not really afraid”, said Noh Seung-eok, who farms rice in Paju, north of Seoul and just minutes from the frontier. That’s why, earlier this year, Democrats and Republicans in Congress joined together to help impose unprecedented new sanctions on the Kim regime.
North Korea is thought to have a handful of rudimentary nuclear bombs and has spent decades trying to flawless a multistage, long-range missile to eventually carry smaller versions of those bombs.
Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test so far.
But, she warned, if the claim turns out to be true “they can threaten not just their neighbours but the United States as well”.
But the leaders have also acknowledged that the sanctions regime still has a huge loophole, as long as China continues as North Korea’s largest trading partner and de facto patron.
The US and Russian Federation have already indicated that there will be more discussions at the UN.
Kim Jong-un’s aggression and invective show no sign of abating. The North’s southern neighbour- still technically at war with the North because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a treaty – and Japan are particularly nervous.
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Although it has regularly threatened neighbouring South Korea, its main priority is developing a effective strike threat against the United States mainland.
