Obama condemns North Korea nuclear test, promises new sanctions

Before the closed-door UN Security Council meeting, US Ambassador Samantha Power said that “North Korea is seeking to ideal its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike”.

In response to requests from Japan, the United States and South Korea, the U.N. Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting.

Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, told reporters Friday that “we must urgently break this accelerating spiral of escalation.”This unacceptable act endangers peace and security in the region and is another vivid reminder of the urgent need to strengthen the global nuclear test ban regime”, Ban said”.

Hillary Clinton said Friday North Korea’s latest nuclear test should prompt a “rethinking” of America’s strategy to deal with the rogue nation.

Penn: Well, my guess would be that there will be some kind of new sanctions but what you have to realize is that North Korea’s already under quite heavy sanctions and there’s not really many tools in the toolbox which are left remaining for them to use.

During a phone conversation with Han late Friday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stressed the “ironclad” alliance among the U.S. and its allies including South Korea, pointing at various means such as the nuclear umbrella, traditional deterrents and missile defense measures that can deter North Korean nuclear ambitions, according to the defense ministry here.

The test, the second one in eight months, was carried out at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, located less than 100 km from North Korea’s border with China.

During a closed-door meeting on Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the United Nations charter, which provides for sanctions.

“To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state”, US President Barack Obama said.

South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful blast to date.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it may take more than additional sanctions to resolve the crisis, suggesting that a Security Council agreement may prove hard.

The expert noted that the current developments may lead to significant tensions between North Korea and China.

North Korea announced it had tested a nuclear weapon in an underground explosion, a little more than an hour after the U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 4.7 seismic disturbance. “It’s not just the Korean Peninsula now, some of this capability would at least indicate he could move further afield”, Key said.

Japan’s Abe said such a nuclear test could not be tolerated.

USA -based 38 North, a North Korea monitoring project, said in a note late on Thursday that satellite images showed fresh activity at North Korea’s Punggye-ri test site.

“But I regret to tell you that it has not been materialised because of many different situations, mainly caused by North Koreans’ provocative actions”, Mr Ban said.

“This poses great concern to the security of Japan and undermines the peace and stability of the region and the worldwide community”, Monji said.

It is very likely that the nuclear test is a kind of attempt to divert public attention from the complex internal problems by demonstrating the country’s military might.