North Korea issues hydrogen bomb threat

At the time, many observers ridiculed the claim by North Korea, which often uses bombastic assertions to increase leverage over its enemies in negotiations or to burnish its image at home.

South Korean tours to Mount Kumgang were an important source of hard currency for Pyongyang, but were suspended after a female tourist was shot dead by soldiers in 2008, allegedly after walking into a military zone. Hwang Boogi, center, South Korea’s vice minister of unification and the head negotiator for high-level talks with North Korea, speaks to the media before leaving for Kaesong, at the office of inter-Korean Dialogue in Seo…

It marked the first inter-governmental dialogue between the two Koreas since South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office in early 2013 to discuss a comprehensive range of inter-Korean issues.

The Koreas remain technically at war, because the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Nor were the sanctions imposed on North Korea by the South in 2010 when it blamed a North Korean torpedo for sinking a warship, killing 46 South Koreans.

SEOUL, South Korea-North and South Korea sat down to rare, high-level talks Friday, with each side looking to squeeze concessions from the other on stalled cross-border programmes in which both their leaders have a political stake.

Then, a UN-mandated commission of inquiry revealed the depth of devastation in North Korea.

“It will be the first governmental meeting since the August 25 agreement and it will work as the first regular inter-Korean governmental talks”.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has said that his country has developed a hydrogen bomb, the latest of several claims that the isolated nation has made about its nuclear capabilities that outside analysts have greeted with scepticism.

“In fact, it sends a signal that North Korea wants to improve relations with China”, Wang told Yonhap News Agency by telephone.

The State Department urged the North to completely give up all of its nuclear weapons and programs.

Of course, Russian Federation and China will not easily abandon their opposition.

South Korean and Western officials said there is no evidence to support Kim’s claims.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said he supported a call by the U.N. General Assembly urging the Security Council to refer the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court, saying it is “essential, given the scale and extreme gravity of the allegations”.

About 71,000 South Koreans, more than half of them elderly people aged over 80, are reportedly on Seoul’s waiting list for an eventual reunion.