Korea Fires Warning Shots Amid Tensions Over North’s Nuclear Test

Kim was engaged in illicit trade across the China border when she was in North Korea.

But what is more important than whether North Korea’s specific test was a success or not and whether the bomb was a hydrogen bomb or not, is whether Pyongyang’s test means it has advanced its technology sufficiently for mounting a nuclear device on a missile.

Park vowed all-out diplomatic efforts to support a strong U.N. Security Council resolution, including new sanctions, “which could get changes in North Korea’s attitude”.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

“It may be mistaken to expect that China will cooperate on severe sanctions given that South Korea and the USA are simply calling for pressure”.

China is anxious that a crackdown on North Korea may destabilize the Kim regime and lead to millions of refugees fleeing across China’s border, or that South Korea will absorb its northern neighbor, leaving a well-armed USA ally on its frontier.

But the test “was neither to “threaten” anyone nor to “provoke” someone for a certain objective, ‘ KCNA said, insisting that the main focus was on providing a ‘sure guarantee” of the North’s immunity from attack by hostile forces.

Despite North Korea basking in the glory of its self-proclaimed successful test, experts have raised questions over the power of the bomb.

South Korean soldiers responded by sounding broadcasts and firing warning shots before “the vehicle immediately returned to the north”, the ministry said.

Last week, Pyongyang claimed it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, drastically raising tensions in the region to a new high.

Yonhap news agency said about 20 rounds had been fired as warning shots from a machine gun.

Oh, who lives on the outskirts of the South Korean capital, Seoul, said information trickling in to North Korea will slowly challenge the image of nuclear weapons as a source of national pride.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted almost unanimously on Tuesday to pass legislation to broaden sanctions on the North.

“Israel condemns North Korea’s nuclear test and joins the global community in expressing concern of the danger that this act poses regional stability and worldwide peace and security”, a foreign ministry statement said.

“Nuclear-free world must begin with the Korean Peninsula”.

It is the first time shots have been fired in what has so far been a Cold War-style standoff between the Koreas in the wake of the North’s nuclear test one week ago. If true, it would mark a major development in Pyongyang’s nuclear program because such fusion weapons are potentially more powerful than the plutonium or enriched uranium fission weapons it has done before.