The push to expand sanctions against Pyongyang has strong bipartisan support even as many suspect North Korea – which claimed to have set off a hydrogen bomb last week – is lying about conducting nuclear testing.
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Mr 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.
On January 10, the Stratofortress flew non-stop from Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam approximately 1,900 miles to perform a flyover of Osan Air Force Base in South Korea.
That could include F-22 stealth fighter jets, nuclear-powered submarines and B-2 bombers, according to media in the country.
The move is apparently motivated by fears that South Koreans staying in the zone could be vulnerable if North-South tensions continue to escalate. Expert seismological analysis of the strength of the blast suggested later that it was in fact a conventional atomic bomb and not a much more powerful hydrogen bomb.
In the wake of the test on Wednesday, the two Koreas have settled into the kind of Cold War-era standoff that has defined their relationship over the past seven decades.
The North also initiated propaganda broadcasts on Monday from loudspeakers situated on its border with the South, in a tit-for-tat response to the South’s decision on Friday to resume such broadcasts. The tensions were eased only after marathon talks between top-level military officials of the two Koreas resulted in the so-called August 25 agreement on a series of measures to defuse tensions. But it is also indicative of the real fury that the broadcasts, which criticise the country’s revered dictatorship, cause in the North.
An analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey fixed the coordinates of the bomb test in northeastern North Korea, an isolated and heavily forested area about 6,000 feet in elevation.
A US Forces Korea spokesman said the mission was a “response to recent provocative action by North Korea”.
This is expected to slow production at the South Korean-operated plants, which employ thousands of North Korean workers, potentially forcing them out of work.
Jeong said that the minimum number will be adjusted from the current 800 people or so to about 650.
The park, the last big remaining symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, is considered a rare legitimate source of hard currency for the impoverished North.
United States forces in South Korea were put on their highest level of alert on Monday in case of any provocation from North Korea, following North Korea’s nuclear test last week.
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North Korea has condemned the deployment of a U.S. B-52 bomber in South Korea airspace and the resumption of South Korea loudspeaker broadcasts.
