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including its sole patron China.
The isolated state said its third underground test, after previous detonations in 2006 and 2009 that triggered a raft of UN sanctions, was a direct riposte to US “hostility”. The claim that it involved a “miniaturised and lighter” device will be of particular concern, suggesting it is a step closer to fitting a nuclear warhead onto a ballistic missile following its successful launch of a long-range rocket in December.
Confirmation of the test from the North’s state media came nearly three hours after seismic monitors detected an unusual tremor at 0257 GMT in the area of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the northeast.
Obama denounced the test and called for a “swift” and “credible” international response, as the UN Security Council readied to meet in emergency session. China expressed “firm opposition” to the nuclear test and noted that it came “despite widespread opposition from the international community”.
Reaction was swift from neighbours Japan and South Korea, who stressed the threat to regional and their own national security. Russia, Nato and the European Union all condemned the test as illegal and a flagrant violation of UN resolutions. The United States and its allies will push hard for China to get tough with its erratic ally and ramp up existing sanctions. But China’s leverage is limited, observers say, by its fear of a North Korean collapse and the prospect of a reunified, US-allied Korea directly on its border. It was the North’s first nuclear test since its new, youthful leader Kim Jong-Un took over from his father, Kim Jong-Il.
“The launch and the test are empirical evidence that Kim and his regime have no intention of negotiating away the North’s nuclear programme any time soon,” said Paul Carroll, programme director at the US-based Ploughshares Fund.
South Korea’s spy agency warned that Pyongyang might further up the ante by conducting another nuclear test or a ballistic missile launch in coming days or weeks. On a technical level experts will be hungry to know if North Korea has switched from plutonium to a new and self-sustaining nuclear weaponisation programme using uranium. The KCNA statement did not specify what fissile material was used, but noted that the test’s success had provided the North with a “diversified” nuclear deterrent. The North has substantial deposits of uranium ore and it is much easier to secretly enrich uranium, which can be done with centrifuges rather than the nuclear reactor required for plutonium enrichment. The third test throws down a stark security and diplomatic challenge to Obama as well as to new Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Paik Hak-Soon, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, said Kim Jong-Un was intent on triggering a crisis that would force the international community to negotiate on his terms.
Meanwhile, the DPRK said its nuclear test yesterday was only a “first” step and warned of stronger action if it was faced with tougher sanctions as a result.
“The latest nuclear test was only the first action, with which we exercised as much self-restraint as possible,” the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the country’s official news agency.
“If the US further complicates the situation with continued hostility, we will be left with no choice but to take even stronger second or third rounds of action,” it said without elaborating. —AFP.
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