Barack Obama’s Push For Sanctions, ‘Meaningless’, ‘Laughable’: North Korea

Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui said a nuclear test carried out by North Korea is “not conducive to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula”.

North Korea is slamming the latest sanctions threatened by U.S. President Barack Obama after its fifth nuclear test, calling any sanctions “laughable”.

It claimed it had detonated a nuclear warhead – ratcheting up a threat its rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.

The council president, New Zealand Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, told reporters that the 15 members strongly condemned the underground nuclear test and agreed to “work immediately on appropriate measures”.

North Koreans gathered around public screens to watch the official announcement of the test on Friday – which came on the 68th anniversary of the country’s founding.

“Obama is trying hard to deny the DPRK’s [North Korea’s] strategic position as a legitimate nuclear weapons state but it is as foolish an act as trying to eclipse the sun with a palm”, said a foreign ministry spokesman quoted by the official KCNA news agency. Pyongyang defended its right to conduct such tests in order to “protect our dignity” amid threats of “nuclear war” from Washington.

If you’re anxious about North Korea’s access to nuclear weapons – like much of the global community – its southern neighbor says you shouldn’t be.

“Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon”.

Officials believe the explosive yield was 70 to 80% smaller than the devastating atomic bomb that the USA dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, but at least double that of the North’s nuclear test in January.

The AP reported over the weekend that Hillary Clinton, the US democratic presidential candidate, said it was time for a “rethinking” of America’s strategy for North Korea and that she would seek to impose tougher sanctions on the communist nation.

Russian Federation has urged all parties to remain calm and not to escalate the already tense situation, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressing that the UN Security Council resolutions “must be observed”, while saying that Moscow is “very concerned about the test”.

“We will be working very closely in the Security Council and beyond to come up with the strongest possible measure against North Korea’s latest actions”, said U.S. envoy Kim on Sunday.

Zhang made the remarks in a meeting on Saturday with North Korea’s ambassador to China, Ji Jae-ryong.

In 2011, the paper had reported that the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan had disclosed that North Korea bribed top military officials in Islamabad to obtain access to nuclear technology in the late 1990’s.