South Korea builds strategic, diplomatic responses to North’s nuclear test

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said yesterday that Seoul and Washington are having “close and continuous discussions” about further deployment of American strategic assets.

Rep. Eliot Engel of NY, the committee’s top Democrat, said Kim is on a “dangerous, destabilizing course” and the USA needs to act unilaterally to show the North Koreans that “there are consequences for their actions”.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un, North Korean leader, has described last week’s nuclear test as a hydrogen bomb, and self-defensive measure against USA threats of a nuclear war.

Two days after the test, South Korea resumed its anti-North loudspeaker broadcasts along the inter-Korean border, created to agitate front-line North Korean soldiers.

 Mr. Hwang will visit China on Thursday for talks, amid repeated calls by Beijing, Pyongyang’s sole ally, for all sides to show restraint.

North Korea had also conducted an ejection test of its new Bukkeukseong-1 (Polaris-1, KN-11) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) as a part of its SLBM development programme, at the Sinpo South Shipyard.

Seoul also announced additional restrictions on the movement of its citizens to the jointly-run Kaesong industrial park, just a few kilometers (miles) over the border inside North Korea.

North Korea’s fourth nuclear test on Wednesday angered both the United States and China, which was not given prior notice, although the U.S. government and weapons experts doubt the North’s claim that the device it set off was a hydrogen bomb.

North Korea carried out three atomic bomb tests between 2006 and 2013, leading to stiff sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a celebratory photo session in the wake of the country’s purported H-bomb test, as Seoul tightened control over a key symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

Timonin said the nuclear issue should be resolved peacefully. Compliance has been lowest in Africa, an increasingly important market for low-cost North Korean weapons sales.

“I want you to maintain the highest level readiness from a long-term view as joint military exercises are coming up”, Scaparrotti told US and South Korean forces on a visit to a base – apparently referring to joint annual military exercises that usually begin in February or March and invariably provoke an angry reaction from North Korea.

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.

The US is also considering sending a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to waters off the Korean peninsula next month to join a naval exercise with Seoul, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported without identifying a source.