US raises doubts about North Korea’s claim on hydrogen bomb

If the hydrogen bomb claim is true, it would indicate advances in the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Citing a report from North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, a South Korean news agency, Yonhap, said Kim made the declaration while touring a historic weapons industry site in the country, according to USA Today.

The North Korean government made claims this week that it is allegedly in possession of a hydrogen bomb. North Korea has likely already achieved warhead miniaturization, the ability to place nuclear weapons on its medium-range missiles, and a preliminary ability to reach the continental United States with a missile.

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. But analysts were doubtful of Kim Jong Un’s latest bellicose claim, saying the young leader appeared primarily concerned with trying to bolster his legitimacy. North Korea is known to have a nuclear arsenal, and is believed to have tested nuclear devices three times in the past.

An atomic bomb uses fission to break up the atomic nucleus and release energy, while a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb uses fusion to add to the nucleus.

The cash-strapped North wants the South to resume lucrative tours to its scenic Mount Kumgang resort, which Seoul suspended in 2008 after a female tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard.

One theory is that the H-bomb announcement is a distraction created to throw the world off the fact that North Korean Navy recently tested a submarine-launched nuclear missile-and it didn’t go well.

Dr Jeffrey Lewis from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California said it was “unlikely” they actually had developed the weapon but warned: “I don’t expect them to keep testing basic devices indefinitely either”. “I think that virtually impossible”, says Daniel Pinkston, and expert on North Korea’s nuclear weapons but based in Romania.

The elephant in the room for any North-South dialogue is Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.

Albright, too, noted that the North Koreans could have obtained technical assistance from Russian experts.

“The situation on the Korean peninsula is very delicate, complex and fragile”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Huan Chunying told reporters.

Hua said all parties involved are expected to make constructive efforts to do more to help ease the situation and to achieve an early restart of the Six-Party Talks.

Should the Supreme Leader’s remarks turn out to be true, it would mark a significant progress in North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. ‘Their objective could be to pressure the worldwide community.