1
North Korea on Sunday tested its sixth and largest nuclear device, a demonstration of power that triggered a magnitude 6.3 earthquake around the area of its test site.
The “perfect success” of what Pyongyang claimed was a hydrogen bomb capable of being mounted on a ballistic missile marks the latest show of defiance to the international community, particularly the US, amid a tense stand-off over the regime’s rapidly developing weapons programmes.
Donald Trump said North Korea had become hostile and dangerous to the US. “North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success,” he tweeted.
He also criticised South Korea’s “talk of appeasement”. Appeasement would not work, the US president tweeted. “They only understand one thing.”
The China Earthquake Administration and the US Geological Survey both measured the quake at magnitude 6.3, with the Chinese body saying it had occurred at a depth of zero km. Officials in South Korea and Japan also confirmed they believed the earthquake was the result of a nuclear explosion.
The tremor was stronger than those created by the regime’s five previous tests, suggesting the device had a significantly higher yield. South Korea’s parliamentary defence committee estimated the device had a yield of up to 100 kilotons, about 10 times more powerful than the fifth test.
South Korea condemned the test and put its nuclear crisis team into operation, with the presidential Blue House calling an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.
President Moon Jae called for diplomatic pressure to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme. The president also called for a review of US and South Korean military planning to counter the nuclear threat, Kyodo reported.
US President Donald Trump has made disarming the reclusive Asian nation his top foreign policy priority amid growing fears that Pyongyang is nearing the capability of targeting the American mainland with nuclear warheads.
After North Korea test-fired two long-range missiles in July theoretically able to achieve that range, Mr Trump last month warned of“fire and fury” if Pyongyang continued to threaten the US.
https://www.ft.com/content/561fcdd4-...6-11d2f0ebb7f0
Bookmarks