China monitoring North Korean border for radiation

“The U.S.is now pushing the two Koreas closer to the brink of war as they make suggestions like the deployment of a nuclear-bomber formation [to the peninsula]”, the Rodong said in an editorial Monday.

The United States’ B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber flew in the skies of South Korea on Sunday in a major show of force four days after North Korea conducted what it said was its first hydrogen bomb test.

Interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union”, McDonough said the United States would work with South Korea, Japan, China and Russian Federation “to deeply isolate the North Koreans” and “squeeze” them until they live up to prior commitments to get rid of their nuclear weapons.

Earlier Monday, a spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which deals with North Korean affairs, said that it would impose tougher entry restrictions to the Kaesong Industrial Complex and workers in the park would have their stays limited to the “minimum necessary level” for their own safety.

US B-52 strategic bomber flying over South Korea in a show of force following North Korea’s nuclear test, South Korea, 10 January 2016.

South Korea says it’s preparing a strategic umbrella.

Pyongyang says the broadcasts are tantamount to an act of war.

The United States has said it has no nuclear weapons stationed in South Korea.

The North has also expanded propaganda broadcasts in border areas in response to South Korea’s resumption of its broadcasts on Friday.

However, Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said on Twitter that the size of the quake was too small to be caused by a hydrogen bomb.

During the troop inspection with Scaparrotti, South Korean General Lee Sun Jin cautioned that Pyongyang could feel itself pushed into provocative actions.

“Re-introduction of nuclear weapons on the peninsula will lead to neighbours asking questions about what they should be doing and it could quickly escalate into an arms race, a very unsafe arms race, in the region”, said the official. The US yesterday sent a B-52 bomber on a low-level flight south of Seoul, while South Korea has restarted propaganda broadcasts across its heavily armed northern border.

North Korea has been under UN Security Council sanctions since its first test of an atomic device.

Beijing continued to pressure Pyongyang by closely inspecting all goods crossing the border with North Korea and curbed visas for North Korean laborers. It responded with artillery fire the last time South Korea used the speakers in August.

China has implemented a round-the-clock radiation monitoring system on the country’s border with North Korea after Pyongyang claimed last week to have tested a hydrogen bomb.