NK hails ‘perfect success’ of nuke test
Bomb trial thought to be regime’s biggest yet
SEOUL: North Korea said it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb yesterday with “unprecedentedly big power” that can be loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile, in its first nuclear test under US President Donald Trump’s watch.
The test, ordered by Kim Jong-un, was a “perfect success” and confirmed the precision and technology of the hydrogen bomb, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The regime has defied Mr Trump’s warnings as it seeks the capability to strike the US with an atomic weapon.
“The creditability of the operation of the nuclear warhead is fully guaranteed,” KCNA said.
South Korea’s weather agency said it detected a magnitude-5.7 earthquake around 12.29pm local time near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in northeast North Korea. Energy from the explosion was about six times stronger in force than the nuclear test conducted by Pyongyang last September, it said.
“All options are on the table,” Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said on public broadcaster NHK. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said a North Korea nuclear test would be “absolutely unacceptable and we must protest it strongly”.
Pyongyang’s actions are set to further increase tensions in Northeast Asia, where concerns have grown this year that a war of words between Mr Trump and Mr Kim could set off a military conflict. It was the sixth nuclear test by Pyongyang since 2006 and the first since the US and South Korea elected new leaders.
Mr Trump had no immediate response to the nuclear test, though he has repeatedly lashed out at North Korea since taking office, warning last month of “fire and fury” if the regime continues to threaten the US
“It’s big — an order of magnitude bigger than anything else we’ve seen the North Koreans explode,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California. “A larger weapon can obviously wreak more destruction. But I think there is also
a political aspect — the North Koreans want an arsenal as modern as anyone else.”
It’s also the second time North Korea has conducted a major provocation while China hosted a big international event. President Xi Jinping is hosting counterparts from Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa (Brics) in a three-day meeting which started yesterday.
China’s foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the nuclear test. “China urges North Korea to abide by Security Council resolutions, stop taking actions that will worsen the situation and at the same time won’t benefit its own interests, and to return to the path of dialogue to solve the problem,” it said.
Mr Trump’s administration has sought to pressure China into cutting off food and fuel to North Korea, while warning that all options are on the table to stop Mr Kim. China has resisted doing anything that would lead to the collapse of the regime, in part to avoid destabilising its economy and seeing the US military gain influence in a unified Korea.
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously voted to tighten sanctions that targeted about a third of North Korea’s US$3 billion in exports.
Michael Kovrig, senior adviser for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, said he felt a tremor while sitting in a coffee shop on Sunday in the Chinese city of Hunchun, which is on the border with North Korea.
“I would expect a measured response from the Chinese showing their displeasure,” Mr Kovrig said. “The fact that they did this test with the Brics summit about to start really shows the dire state of relations at the moment.”
South Korea will now discuss ways to possibly deploy the “most powerful” strategic assets the US military has, National Security Council head Chung Eui-yong said in a briefing, without elaborating. South Korean’s presidential office on Friday dismissed the possibility of deploying US nuclear weapons to the country.
Yesterday’s developments follow
successive launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US, and the firing of a missile over Japan last week into the Pacific Ocean.
North Korea claimed beforehand it now had a more-developed hydrogen bomb it can mount on an ICBM. It has a multifunctional thermonuclear weapon adjustable from tens of kiloton to hundreds of kiloton that can be detonated at high altitudes for an electromagnetic pulse attack, KCNA said.
The Nuclear Weapons I nstitute “recently succeeded in making a more developed nuke, true to the strategic intention of [its party] for bringing about a signal turn in nuclear weaponization,” KCNA said. Mr Kim was quoted as saying that North Korea can now produce as many powerful nuclear weapons “as it wants”.
North Korea has said it won’t give up its weapons program until the US drops “hostile” policies such as joint drills with South Korea that ended last week.