South Korea foreign minister to speak with Chinese counterpart on Friday

Kerry, for his part, took issue with those contentions, emphatically maintaining that, “North Korea has never been left unattended to”. South Korea stopped earlier broadcasts in late August after it agreed with Pyongyang in late August on a package of measures aimed at easing animosities.

The spokesman said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi also discussed the issue.

The Foreign Secretary, who has arrived in the country after visits to China and the Philippines, will also meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The broadcasts include popular Korean pop songs, world news and weather forecasts as well as criticism of the North’s nuclear test, its troubled economy and dire human rights conditions, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry.

The UK’s Foreign Secretary has urged South Korea to “exercise restraint” in the wake of North Korea’s nuclear bomb test. B-2 and B-52 bombers are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said earlier that it was not yet considering shutting down the Kaesong industrial complex run jointly with the North, located north of the heavily militarised border.

The South Korean city of Paju, which sits along the border with North Korea, suspended tours of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) at the military’s request.

It may take weeks or longer to confirm or refute the North’s claim that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, which would mark a major and unanticipated advance for its still-limited nuclear arsenal. India and Pakistan have also conducted nuclear tests since then and are among eight countries including the United States and China preventing the treaty coming into force.

He added that nothing had happened in the last 24 hours to change Washington’s assessment of Pyongyang’s technical or military capabilities.

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But even if the North exploded a boosted fission bomb, its explosive yield, estimated at 6.0 kilotons, showed the test was likely a failure, Seoul’s Defense Ministry official said Thursday.

“Initial reports indicate the North Koreans may be bragging a little bit too much”, one unidentified official was quoted in the report as saying of the claims of a hydrogen bomb test.

It was unclear, however, how more sanctions would deter North Korea, which has conducted four nuclear tests since 2006 while paying little heed to global pressure. North Korea’s declaration that it had tested a hydrogen bomb fo… But debate is growing on just how far the North has advanced. At high-level inter-Korean talks at the truce village in August, Pyongyang expressed regret over land mine explosions in the DMZ and Seoul, in return, suspended its retaliatory psychological warfare across the border.

USA aircraft created to detect evidence of a nuclear test, such as radioactive particulate matter and blast-related noble gases, could be deployed from a US base on the Japanese island of Okinawa.