A resolution was finally reached after North Korea “expressed regret” for the blasts and the South agreed to turn off the loudspeakers in return.
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Jean Lee, former AP Pyongyang bureau chief who now teaches North Korean studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, told Mashable that Kim Jong-un’s birthday will likely to be celebrated quietly and unofficially on Friday.
The United States and weapons experts voiced doubts the device was as advanced as North Korea claimed, but calls mounted for more sanctions against the isolated state for its rogue nuclear programme. The White House says the countries vow to work together to “forge a united and strong worldwide response to North Korea’s latest reckless behavior”.
South Korea’s spy service said it thought the estimated explosive yield from the blast was much smaller than what even a failed hydrogen bomb detonation would produce.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, has urged China to get tough with North Korea after Pyongyang reportedly conducted a nuclear test earlier this week. “We know that responding in this way is simply rising to the bait that North Korea is presenting to us”.
South Korea has also begun limiting entry to the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea, which is jointly run by both countries.
The US is limited in its military response for fear of provoking an unpredictable regime in Pyong-yang, said Anthony Cordes-man, a defence policy expert at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies thinktank.
The statement further underscored that North Korea will act as a “responsible nuclear state”, and will use its nuclear armament only to defend its sovereignty.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is asking South Korea to refrain from resuming propaganda broadcasts across the border into North Korea.
Hours after the nuclear test, the UN Security Council said it would work immediately on significant new measures against North Korea.
The ministry also said there had been no government decision on what North Korea needed to do to end the propaganda broadcasts.
On Tuesday, North Korea announced it had successfully detonated its first hydrogen bomb.
Hydrogen bombs release about 1,000 times the energy of a standard atomic bomb, according to Tatsujiro Suzuki, a professor at Nagasaki University’s Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.
But the North is already under layers of sanctions imposed following its past missile launches and three nuclear tests, and analysts have questioned what real impact fresh penalties will really have.
In retaliation for the test, South Korea on Friday unleashed a ear-splitting propaganda barrage over its border with the North. The last time South Korea deployed the loudspeakers, in August 2015, it triggered an exchange of artillery fire.
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KINS official Lee Ki-hyeong also noted that other types of xenon isotopes used to confirm nuclear explosions weren’t detected.
