United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned North Korea’s nuclear test on Friday as a “brazen breach” of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
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Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would work with other Security Council members to take “robust steps” in response, and he urged North Korea to resume denuclearization talks it abandoned in 2009.
North Korea had tested a nuclear weapon on Thursday night, prompting an emergency meeting by the United Nations Security Council.
The blast, detected around 9 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET) in the area of North Korea’s Punggye-ri underground test site, is estimated to have had the explosive power of 10 kilotons, nearly twice as large as the most recent test in January, said Kim Nam-wook of South Korea’s Meteorological Administration.
China said Friday it “firmly opposes” the test, but it has limited room to manoeuvre. The U.S. will also deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to South Korea, Obama said.
North Korea says the nuclear warhead explosion test was conducted in a nuclear research center located at the northern test site, according to a broadcast from North Korea Television, KCTV.
According to South Korean officials, the “nuclear yield” of the explosion was 10 kilotons – that means the explosion released the amount of energy equivalent to that released by 10,000 tons of TNT.
A U.S. official told CNN that it looked like a nuclear test but confirmation would be dependent on seismic readings, location of the seismic event and whether it can be matched to an underground test site. Kim is the North Korean leader.
– July 19: North Korea fires three ballistic missiles, with two of them flying between 500 to 600 kilometers (310 to 375 miles).
“North Korea poses a threat to the region and poses a threat to the kind of stable border relationship that China has always valued with North Korea”, she said.
In the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, residents were delighted. “They aren’t a backwards state any more”, Lewis said.
“North Korea stands out as the only country to have tested nuclear weapons this century”, Obama said.
North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006 created a magnitude 4.3 natural disaster, according to USGS data.
Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear nonproliferation and geopolitics from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies has estimated that the seismic magnitude of this test can be considered as the most powerful test conducted by North Korea to date. “It’s China’s responsibility. China has and shares an important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it”, he told a news conference on a visit to Norway.
The latest detonation – the country’s second in eight months – has heightened concerns that North Korea is building lighter, smaller nuclear weapons capable of being mounted on missiles and striking as far away as North America’s west coast.
We are now analyzing whether it was a successful test, the official said.
North Korea says it will not give up on its nuclear “deterrence” unless Washington ends its hostile policy toward Pyongyang and dissolves the US-led command in South Korea.
It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or Moscow of its planned nuclear test.
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How close is North Korea to mounting a nuclear warhead? Not only has the range of the weapons jumped significantly, but the country is working to flawless new platforms for launching them – submarines and mobile launchers – giving the North greater ability to threaten the tens of thousands of US troops stationed throughout Asia.
