A Pentagon spokesman said Friday that nothing had changed in the United States’ assessment of North Korea’s ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead. That means Obama’s successor will confront a nuclear and missile program far more advanced than the one that Obama began grappling with in 2009.
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Speaking to reporters only a day earlier in Vientiane, where he attended the Asean summits, Mr Abe had said strong pressure from the worldwide community was the only way to stop North Korea from conducting missile and nuclear tests and called for economic sanctions to be implemented “strictly”.
Sunao Tsuboi, a 91-year-old Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor who had a brief chat with US President Barack Obama during his historic visit to Hiroshima in May, said, “As an atomic bomb survivor, I can not help but feel indignant at the test which was conducted amid a growing momentum in global efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons following US President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima”.
Japan’s Abe said such a nuclear test could not be tolerated.
“I am angered at North Korea’s repeated acts of barbarism”, said Shigeo Iizuka, the 78-year-old head of a group representing abductees’ families, whose younger sister Yaeko Taguchi was abducted in 1978 at the age of 22.
The U.S. remains open to “credible and authentic” denuclearization talks with the North, but Pyongyang “has chosen a different path and made clear it would not be a credible negotiating partner”, he said.
The former secretary of state, in a statement, called for new sanctions in addition to those endorsed by the Obama administration and adopted earlier in the year with the United Nations. In fact, the latest test could provide further justification for the USA to deploy its advanced anti-missile system in South Korea, a move opposed by China, they added.
That test was followed in the spring by the first ever launch tests of the Musudan mobile ballistic missile. But its capabilities had never been demonstrated.
North Korean leader Kim has overseen a robust increase in the number and kinds of missiles tested this year. This will have negative consequences primarily for North Korea itself.
The variety of North Korean missile tests “suggests they are very intent on developing this capability across the board”, Davis told Pentagon reporters Friday.
Power has rejected suggestions that the decision to deploy the anti-missile defense system in South Korea had provoked Pyongyang.
Philip Yun, executive director of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization that aims to eliminate nuclear weapons, also said the world can not delay a response to North Korea’s testing. It was the North’s fifth atomic test and the second in eight months.
Kim Jong-Un appears to be unfazed by worldwide criticism of North Korea’s testing program and by global sanctions that ban testing.
China opposed North Korea’s nuclear test, a key denunciation by the North’s economic lifeline and only major ally. Three of North Korea’s five nuclear tests have occurred on his watch.
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The united front presented by the United States and its regional allies does not have the weight that strong criticism from China would have on North Korea. In the wake of North Korea’s missile tests this year, the US has agreed to place a new anti-missile system in South Korea, but China is wary of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile. The North is already one of the most heavily sanctioned places on Earth, and many question whether the penalties work.
