China Urges to Resolve Korean Peninsula Nuclear Issue Peacefully

There were no obvious signs of disruption in the northeastern city of Dandong that sits on the Yalu River directly across from North Korea’s Sinuiju.

“North Korea acts in a totally irresponsible and provocative way, and I can entirely understand the pressure that the South Koreans feel to respond”, Hammond told reporters on a visit to the USS Ronald Reagan, docked at the Yokosuka Naval Base southwest of Tokyo.

South Korea raised military readiness to its highest level at locations near the loudspeakers and turned the broadcast on Friday morning. According to him, “with friction persisting on a number of issues, including cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property and Chinese island building and militarisation of the South China Sea the Chinese will capitalise on North Korea’s nuclear test to engage in limited cooperation with Washington”.

A joint factory park between the two Koreas was operating as normal on Saturday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Kerry’s unusually pointed comments toward China came amidst harsh criticism of the Obama administration for not taking a harder line against North Korea, which has now conducted three nuclear tests under its watch.

North Korea previously carried out tests on nuclear devices in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

And Beijing has resisted being tagged as the only country that can influence events in Pyongyang, insisting that North Korea is a common problem for a host of countries.

The test set off a diplomatic frenzy as the UN Security Council met to discuss possible sanctions and world leaders sought to build a consensus on an appropriate response to such a grave violation of UN resolutions.

Although experts remain skeptical as to whether North Korea really has H-bomb capability, the announcement from the North has reignited fears in the global community over Pyongyang’s efforts to build a warhead small enough to be mounted on a missile and capable of reaching the shores of the mainland US.

This would include a partial ban on North Korean ships entering ports around the world.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan did not provide a timeline for the vote on the long-delayed legislation, but a congressional source said on Thursday it was expected as soon as Monday. It would also penalise those involved in business providing North Korea with hard currency.

The main newspaper in North Korea, the Workers’ Daily, hailed the country’s nuclear test as a success, and all the other state-controlled media left no doubt about the official report of the hydrogen bomb detonation. Far from the days during the Korean War in the early 1950s when Mao Ze Dong had sent troops to help Pyongyang, the China-North Korea relation has its share of contradictions today.

A U.S. Air Force plane equipped with special sensors to detect nuclear blasts began operating in the region Thursday, a U.S. official told CNN Friday.