UN slams North Korea nuke test, calls it ‘profoundly destabilizing’

The broadcaster says global scepticism and condemnation greeted North Korea’s claim to have successfully carried out an underground hydrogen bomb test.

The claimed test, which came just two days before Kim Jong-Un’s birthday, was initially detected as a 5.1-magnitude tremor at the North’s main Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the northeast of the country.

North Korea’s previous nuclear tests have involved atom bombs; a hydrogen bomb is a much more powerful device.

Hydrogen or thermonuclear bombs can be thousands of times more powerful than atomic bombs.

French President Francois Hollande: “France condemns this unacceptable violation of Security Council resolutions and calls for a strong reaction from the global community”.

China opposes the latest nuclear test conducted by North Korea, a Chinese foreign ministry statement said on Wednesday.

The development marks a major advance in North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities.

South Korea’s intelligence agency said the device may not have been a hydrogen nuclear bomb, but an atomic bomb, according to Yonghap news agency.

She recalled that the North Korean government reported a successful hydrogen bomb test on January 6.

The DPRK said the test brings the country to a “higher level of nuclear power”.

While also noting the quake was likely too small for an H-bomb test, Jaiki Lee, a professor of nuclear engineering at Seoul’s Hanyang University, said the North could have experimented with a “boosted” hybrid bomb that uses some nuclear fusion fuel along with more conventional uranium or plutonium fuel. The U.N. called the 2012 launch a banned test of ballistic missile technology.

“We will continue to protect and defend our allies in the region, including the Republic of Korea, and will respond appropriately to any and all North Korean provocations”, State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement issued shortly after Pyongyang announced the shocking news Wednesday.

He said: ” It underlines the very real threat that North Korea represents to regional and worldwide security.

– February 13, 2013: North Korea carries out its third nuclear test.

North Korea’s only significant ally is China, but relations have been strained in recent years because Beijing does not approve of the weapons testing on its doorstep and wants Pyongyang to return to long-dormant six-party talks, chaired by China and including both Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russian Federation.