An explosion heard around the world
South plans more drills after North’s nuclear test rattles globe
SOUTH Korea said yesterday it was preparing fresh military drills with the US and was ramping up its ballistic missile defences in response to North Korea’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday.
The UN Security Council was set to meet later yesterday to discuss fresh sanctions against the isolated regime. US President Donald Trump had also asked to be briefed on all available military options, according to his defence chief.
Officials said activity around missile launch sites suggested North Korea planned further provocations.
“We have continued to see signs of more possible ballistic missile launches. We also forecast North Korea could fire an intercontinental ballistic missile,” Chang Kyung-soo, a defence ministry official, told a parliamentary hearing yesterday.
South Korea’s defence ministry also said it would temporarily deploy the four remaining launchers for a major new US missile defence system after the completion of an environmental assessment by the government.
The rollout of the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system, vehemently opposed by neighbouring China, had been delayed since June. The US joint chiefs of staff have said that more drills were being prepared with the US forces in the South and South Korea’s air force and army.
North Korea said an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile had been tested on Sunday, prompting the warning of a “massive” military response from the US if it or its allies were threatened.
“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said after meeting Trump and his national security team. “But as I said, we have options to do so.”
Trump has previously vowed to stop North Korea developing nuclear weapons and said he would unleash “fire and fury” if it threatened US territory.
That prompted the North to threaten to fire missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam, although it has since appeared to back away from that threat.
Despite the tough talk, the immediate focus of the international response was expected to be on tougher economic sanctions against Pyongyang.
Diplomats have said the UN Security Council could now consider banning Pyongyang’s textile exports and the North’s national airline, stop supplies of oil to the government and military, prevent North Koreans from working abroad and add top officials to a blacklist to subject them to an asset freeze and travel ban.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed yesterday to pursue stronger UN sanctions.
“Both heads of state agreed to co-operate closely with each other and the US, and shared the understanding there must be the most powerful sanctions and pressure applied on North Korea,” presidential Blue House spokesperson Park Su-hyun told a media briefing after the two leaders had spoken by phone.
The aim of stronger sanctions was to draw North Korea into dialogue, he said.
In a series of tweets on Sunday, Trump appeared to rebuke South Korea for that approach.
“South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!” Trump said on Twitter.
His handling of Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test reflected a more traditional approach to crisis management.
North Korea, which carries out its nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of UN resolutions and sanctions, said on state television the hydrogen bomb test ordered by leader Kim Jong Un had been a “perfect success”.
Hours before, North Korean state news agency KCNA released pictures showing Kim inspecting a silver, hourglass-shaped warhead during a visit to the North’s nuclear weapons institute.
Sunday’s test had registered with international seismic agencies as a man-made earthquake near a test site. Japanese and South Korean officials said the tremor was about 10 times more powerful than the one picked up after North Korea’s previous nuclear test a year ago. – Reuters