North Korean leader Kim’s H-bomb claim draws scepticism

Kim Jong-un also celebrated the work of his granddad – Kim il-sung – before he became leader. If true, it would mark a significant and startling escalation in the regime’s ability to threaten the United States in its allies.

An official at South Korea’s intelligence agency told Yonhap news agency there was no signs that the North considered Kim was speaking, and had hydrogen bomb capability. For example, in 2014 the National Defense Commission vowed an “ultra-harsh war of reaction targeting the entire USA mainland, including the White House [and] the Pentagon, which are the base of terrorism”. North Korea is known to have a nuclear arsenal, and is believed to have tested nuclear devices three times in the past.

However, skepticism abounds among South Korea’s intelligence community.

The North has made many unverifiable claims about its nuclear weapons strength, including the ability to strike the United States mainland, which most experts dismiss – at least for now.

Lee Chun-geun, a research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute in Seoul, said the North “seems to be developing it”.

Permanent members China and Russian Federation opposed the meeting saying the council was not the appropriate forum, and denying that the human rights situation in North Korea posed a threat to worldwide peace and security.

“China did this with its third [nuclear] test and other states, like South Africa and Israel, moved in this direction with little or no testing”, Lewis said.

AMERICAN OFFICIALS AND experts today poured cold water on leader Kim Jong-Un’s suggestion that North Korea has developed a hydrogen bomb. Info associated to the highly secretive nation of North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, is extraordinarily troublesome to independently affirm. This time, they’re claiming that they’ve developed a hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear weapon that would theoretically make them a legitimate nuclear power.

Both U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman are expected to brief the Council.

North Korea rejects criticism of its human rights record, but in September its foreign minister extended an unprecedented invitation to Zeid to visit the country.

Earlier this year, it said it had successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to mount on a ballistic missile – a claim disputed by US and South Korean experts. There are such specialists in North Korea and, probably, they also have hardware for such experiments. In April, the country repeated earlier claims that it had miniaturized a weapon, that is, created a warhead that could be placed atop a missile.

The Phyongchon Revolutionary Site was meant to commemorate the North’s first munitions factory set up there in 1945 at the instruction of Kim Il-sung.

State-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim as saying the country was “ready to detonate a self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb”.

Prior to Thursday’s announcement, the country’s nuclear capabilities were believed to be limited to atomic bombs, which use a fission process to unleash the energy within atoms.

With that in mind – backed with technical evidence, experts are skeptical about Pyongyang’s latest claim, according to CNN.

China’s government had seen the report but offered no comment on whether or not it was credible.

China is a close ally of desperately poor and reclusive North Korea. In fact, North Korea appears to have disproved the first claim with a failed missile launch from a submarine last month.