Kim Jong Un: North Korea Has Developed Hydrogen Bomb

KCNA/REUTERS North Korea and China have traditionally been allies but relations between the two countries have been strained since Kim Jong Il’s son, Kim Jong Un, came to power.

“[North Korea is] a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation”, Jong-un said, according to the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.

He is also reported to have said that North Korea “has to continue with actively developing its military industry”.

Lee Chun-keun, researcher from the South Korean Science and Technology Policy Institute, took a different approach when he wrote in a paper that the North got laser nuclear fusion equipment from China in the decade of the 80’s, which they might be using to build a reinforced nuclear weapon. The visit comes on the same day that the eccentric leader announced that North Korea possesses a hydrogen bomb.

The meeting began at 10:40 a.m. (0140 GMT) to discuss various pending issues between Seoul and Pyongyang, according to South Korea’s unification ministry.

Analysts have warned that it is only a matter of time until the North develops nuclear-tipped missiles.

Hyon Song-wol, leader of North Korea’s all-female propaganda band, appeared in public Friday, quelling a series of rumors and many media reports that she was executed in 2013.

At the time, many observers ridiculed the claim by North Korea, which often uses bombastic assertions to increase leverage over its enemies in negotiations or to burnish its image at home.

The North was expected to seek the resumption of cross-border tours from the South to its Mount Kumgang resort, a once-lucrative source of cash for the impoverished state that was suspended in 2008. The Soviet Union was the first country to test a hydrogen bomb in 1961.

Impoverished North Korea and rich, democratic South Korea remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty.

“I am skeptical that they could have succeeded by now”, he said.

Russian lawmaker Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s lower legislative house, told state broadcaster Russia 24 that he wasn’t sure whether North Korea had a thermonuclear bomb. But Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert who once studied in the country, said he strongly doubts it.

“They have not even conducted any single test and now they make this claim-there’s no way for us to believe it is true”, Zhang Liangui, the expert, said. Hence, the claim has to be given a good year by South Korea as well as global community.