The announcement yesterday was met with widespread skepticism, as well as a strong condemnation of the defiant, impoverished country by the UN Security Council, which said it would begin work on a resolution for new worldwide sanctions.
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The Security Council held an emergency meeting after North Korea announced its first hydrogen bomb test, which would mark a major advance for its still-limited nuclear arsenal.
That is the same area where North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
USA scientists can determine through air samples if a hydrogen bomb detonation occurred.
Just how big a threat North Korea’s nuclear program poses is a mystery.
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. Washington-based experts estimate that Pyongyang has 10 to 16 nuclear weapons and could have 20 to 100 by 2020.
“It’s worth remembering that North Korea has a nuclear weapon today because of the Clinton administration”, Cruz said. On Dec. 30, the regime’s top official on South Korean affairs died in a traffic accident, according to state media, sparking suspicions of a purge.
RMIT University Professor Joe Siracusa says the world has become more uncertain and risky since North Korea’s announcement that it had conducted a “successful” underground hydrogen bomb test.
“The apparent yield of the [North Korean] event is too small”, says Jeffrey Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
“The Republic (referring to North Korea), as a responsible nuclear weapon holder, will neither use nuclear weapons first nor transfer (nuclear) related means and technology under any circumstances as already declared unless aggressive, hostile forces infringe upon our autonomy”.
“We do not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear armed state, and actions such as this latest test only strengthen our resolve”, he said.
“Beijing will face increased pressure both domestically and internationally to punish and rein in Kim Jong-Un”, said Yanmei Xie, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Northeast Asia. “But North Korea has always defied expectations”.
He added: “North Korea makes all sorts of claims and there is no reason, given their history of lying and dissembling, to take them at their word”. It has been leery of taking such steps because of fears that a collapse of North Korea’s socialist government could cause an influx of refugees and lead to a pro-American, unified Korean nation on China’s doorstep.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing was given no warning of the nuclear test, unlike in the past.
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye condemned what she described as a “grave provocation” and called for a strong global response.
Kishida said Japan would seek a new United Nations resolution condemning the test.
In September, South Korean military officials said they would rather build their own missile interceptors than invest around $2.6 billion in the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System, or THAAD, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., which can destroy incoming missiles up to 200 kilometers away.
Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives are considering a vote as soon as next week on long-delayed legislation to impose stiffer punishments on foreign companies doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. congressional sources said on Wednesday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in an annual New Year’s speech last week that the country was ready for war if provoked by “invasive” outsiders, but did not repeat past threats to use the country’s nuclear weapons or long-range missiles.
“It’s not clear to me that if they maxed out sanctions and made it like Iran that it would make any policy difference”, he said.
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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014 expressed a readiness to loosen sanctions if North Korea were to offer more information about Japanese citizens it kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s.
