The vice-foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan are also expected to meet in Tokyo later this week.
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On Sunday, a U.S. B-52 bomber jet flew over Osan, South Korea in a show of solidarity with Seoul “in response to a recent nuclear test by North Korea”, according to United States Pacific Command.
Other strategic assets under consideration reportedly include a US aircraft carrier, a nuclear-powered submarine and F-22 stealth fighters.
South Korea also said it would restrict access to the jointly run Kaesong industrial complex just north of the heavily militarized inter-Korean border to the “minimum necessary level” from Tuesday.
No significant troop movements have been detected in North Korea that could signal an imminent provocation, and the United States is in talks with South Korea about deploying more strategic assets to the peninsula, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok said Monday at a briefing.
Situated north of the DMZ, the Kaesong complex was established in 2002 during the “Sunshine Policy” of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who sought better relations with Seoul’s northern neighbor.
The South has taken an uncompromising stance in the wake of Wednesday’s test, urging the global community to impose harsh sanctions on Pyongyang and resuming high-decibel propaganda broadcasts into North Korea.
Kim congratulated them on “succeeding in the first H-bomb test… and bringing about a great, historic event”, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported.
Such is the importance of ideology in the reclusive North that the previous round of inter-Korean psychological warfare pressured Pyongyang into last August’s landmark cooperation deal – albeit not before an exchange of fire.
The recent act of North Korea has angered US and China, and has compelled the former to fly a bomber over the skies of Osan, South Korea.
Asked if such a step might spur North Korea, which last week conducted its fourth nuclear test, to move more aggressively on their own atomic weapons program, the official replied: “That’s a distinct possibility”.
South Korean army soldiers walk to get a ride on a military truck at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, near the border of North Korea and South Korea today. He was being held for spying for South Korea and asked the South or the United States government to rescue him, CNN said.
Experts have strongly questioned Pyongyang’s boast, which North Korean leader Kim Jong Un repeated Sunday.
The U.N. Security Council has begun work to draw up a new resolution containing “further significant measures”. North Korean media published a photograph of Kim with the scientists.
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Last week, North Korea successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, bolstering the country’s nuclear strike capabilities.
