Earnest said the president also consulted with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan in separate phone calls.
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“North Korea’s carrying out of a nuclear test is absolutely unacceptable for Japan”, Abe said in a statement, after Pyongyang conducted its fifth nuclear test, believed to be its most powerful to date.
The 5.0 magnitude natural disaster Friday is the largest of the four past quakes associated with North Korean nuclear tests, according to South Korea’s weather agency.
The North’s state TV said the test “examined and confirmed” the design of a nuclear warhead intended for placement on a ballistic missile.
In its official announcement of what it said was a “nuclear warhead explosion test”, North Korea claimed that it had been able to make “smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power”. If this is the case, it will be North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test yet making it 5 kilotonnes shy of the hydrogen bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
It would also be potentially bigger than the one dropped on Nagasaki soon afterwards.
North Korea expert Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute, agreed.
China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday expressing firm opposition to the nuclear test by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
A magnitude 5 natural disaster was recorded at around 9:30 a.m.at the northeastern region of North Korea. The Rodong is a North Korean medium-range missile tested earlier this week that can fire a 1 tonne warhead up to 1,250 miles.
In the end, the Chinese calculus is that instability in North Korea is more unsafe than a North Korea with bombs.
Concern has been growing that North Korea is testing weapons at an unprecedented pace this year, CNN worldwide correspondent Paula Hancocks said.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called North Korea an “outlaw nation in the neighborhood” and said Japan will consider stepping up its sanctions against the North.
In July, satellite images appeared to show high levels of activity at the country’s nuclear test site – and speculation has been growing that Kim Jong-un was planning a fifth test after the USA blacklisted him for human rights abuses.
“North Korea can’t handle this threat with conventional weapons, so they can only develop nuclear ones”, it said. Meanwhile, Kishida strongly opposed the nuclear provocation and promised to cooperate with the United States regarding the “swift” measures from the United Nations Security Council. In addition, conducting the nuclear tests, North Korea defies the UN Security Council rules. Why are the North Koreans doing it, and why is it important?
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“Internationally, this test is created to show that sanctions imposed against North Korea and global pressure are not working”. This marked the fifth official nuclear experiment by the communist state since the UN Security Council adopted a resolution banning it from any nuclear or ballistic missile programs.
