South Korea appeals to China to rein in North over nuclear tests

North Korea says last week’s test was of a miniaturised hydrogen bomb – a claim largely dismissed by experts who argue the yield was far too low for a fully fledged thermonuclear device.

The North Korean drone was flying dozens of meters (yards) south of the border and turned back to the North after the South fired shots, South Korean defense and military officials said, requesting anonymity because of office rules.

North Korean drone flights across the border are rare but do occasionally happen across the world’s most heavily armed border.

It may take weeks or longer to confirm or refute the North’s claim that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, which would mark a major and unanticipated advance for its still-limited nuclear arsenal.

Park’s comments came after Seoul said Pyongyang flew leaflets across the border that described Park and her administration as “mad dogs”. “I believe China knows well that North Korea’s fifth and sixth nuclear tests can’t be avoided and true peace and stability on the Korean peninsula can’t be guaranteed unless that determination turns into real necessary measures”.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (2nd right) provides field guidance at the February 11 Factory of the Ryongsung Joint Machinery Industries in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang May 7, 2015.

President Park mentioned the nuclear experiment of North Korea and said, “It is a serious threat for the survival and future of this country”. Just days before conducting the nuclear test on January 6 that raised tensions on the Korean peninsula, Kim had spoken publicly of his desire for warmer ties with South Korea, and there had been reports a visit to China was in the works.

“Security and the economy are the two axes that support a country, and we are now facing an emergency in which both of them are in crisis”, Park said in her address. China has declared a desire of a non-nuclear North Korea.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye answers to a reporter’s question during her news conference at the Presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016.

The other foreigner known to be in detention in North Korea, and who CNN was also given access to, is Hyeon Soo Lim, a South Korean-born Canadian who was the head pastor at one of Canada’s largest churches.

“The global community’s countermeasures against North Korea’s last nuclear test must differ from the past”, Mr Park told an annual press conference. Building up its response to the South’s activation last Friday of propaganda-blaring loudspeakers on the border, the North also sent leaflets, carried by balloons, into the South on Wednesday.

“We will make every diplomatic effort to bring about the strongest resolution that includes new sanctions stern enough to change the North’s attitude”, Park said, elaborating on Seoul’s efforts to cooperate with Washington and other countries as well as the United Nations Security Council.

His analysis is echoed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), which cited two frames of video from North Korea’s state media where flames engulf the missile and small parts of its body break away.