North Korea has successfully tested a nuke and may have triggered an earthquake. World leaders are reacting this morning.Fox News reports:
North Korea said on Sunday it detonated a hydrogen bomb, possibly triggering an artificial earthquake and prompting immediate condemnation from its neighbors — despite the rogue regime calling the test a “perfect success.”
The blast, carried out at 12:29 p.m. local time at the Punggye-ri site, triggered a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in North Korea, the U.S. Geological Survey reported, though officials in Seoul said it was a magnitude 5.7 quake.
Fox News continues:
. . . . The test was estimated to have a yield of 100 kilotons, meaning a blast that was four to five times more powerful than the explosion in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, a South Korean defense official told the country’s Yonhap News Agency.. . . . Just hours before Sunday’s test, photos emerged showing the North Korean dictator inspecting a new thermonuclear warhead in a lab. This would be North Korea’s sixth nuclear test and first since September 2016.
President Trump has responded to the test on Twitter:
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that President Trump will meet with his national security team later today.
The White House said early Sunday that national security officials are closely monitoring the situation on the Korean peninsula after the latest North Korean nuclear test.“The President and his national security team will have a meeting to discuss further later today,” spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.“We will provide updates as necessary.”
British Prime Minister Teresa May called the test “reckless” and urges further sanctions.
Theresa May has condemned the latest nuclear test by North Korea as “reckless”, saying it is more pressing than ever to look at increasing the pace of implementing sanctions on the regime, writes the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot:The prime minister said the test, North Korea’s sixth since 2006, “poses an unacceptable further threat to the international community.”May reiterated the call she made with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe during her trip to Japan last week for tougher action against Kim Jong-un.“I discussed the serious and grave threat these dangerous and illegal actions present with President Abe in Japan this week and reiterate the call we jointly made for tougher action, including increasing the pace of implementation of existing sanctions and looking urgently in the UN Security Council at new measures,” she said.“This is now even more pressing. The international community has universally condemned this test and must come together to continue to increase the pressure on North Korea’s leaders to stop their destabilising actions.”
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has responded with concerns about the proximity of Seoul, South Korea to the North Korean border. He is urging further diplomatic efforts with North Korea.
Boris Johnson has warned there “no easy military solution” to preventing North Korea escalating its nuclear aggression but said all options were still on the table for retaliation after the regime’s nuclear weapons rest.The foreign secretary said it was not clear how a military response from the West would be possible, given the proximity of the South Korean capital Seoul to the North Korean border.Any military challenge to Kim Jong-Un’s regime could come at huge cost to civilian lives in South Korea, Johnson said.“It’s certainly our view that none of the military options are good,” he told reporters after North Korea announced it had tested a powerful hydrogen bomb that could be loaded on to an intercontinental ballistic missile“It is of course right to say that all options are on the table, but we really don’t see an easy military solution,” he said. Were the West to hit back with force against North Korea, “they could basically vapourise” large parts of the population even with conventional weapons, Johnson warned.“So that’s not really very easy to threaten and to deliver,” he said. “Much more productive we think is to continue with the international diplomatic effort.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also urging caution and suggests that Obama’s Iran deal is a good model for working with North Korea.
Diplomacy is the key to solving the North Korea problem, German Chancellor Angela Merkel says.
Merkel believes an agreement with North Korea that’s similar to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Germany helped orchestrate, could be the answer for convincing North Korea leader Kim Jong Un to disarm, Bloomberg News reported.
“We must now develop similar activities with an eye on North Korea,” Merkel said. North Korea’s recent missile tests should “spur us further to move forward with disarmament efforts.”
Chinese president, Xi Jinping, while not directly addressing the nuclear test, recommends further “dialogue, consultation and negotiation.”
A dark shadow is looming over the world after more than half a century of peace, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has said after North Korea’s sixth nuclear test.Xi made no direct reference to Sunday morning’s detonation as he addressed an annual summit of the Brics nations but told his audience that only through dialogue, consultation and negotiation could “the flame of war be put out”.
Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, issued the following statement:
“The fact that North Korea forced through a nuclear test this time is absolutely unacceptable to our country,” Shinzo Abe said in a statement.The statement continued:
North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programme is a threat that is more grave and urgent to the safety of our country and has entered a new stage. It is significantly hurting regional and international peace and stability. Our country lodge a strict protest against North Korea and condemns it in the strongest words.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg strongly condemns the latest nuclear test.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he “strongly condemn” the sixth nuclear test, saying it was a “flagrant violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
The UN’s head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, also issued a statement.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog said the test was “extremely regrettable” and called North Korea’s nuclear programme a “grave concern”.Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said:
Today’s nuclear test by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is an extremely regrettable act … Once again, I strongly urge the to fully implement all relevant resolutions. The agency continues to closely follow developments in the DPRK*s nuclear programme, which is a matter of grave concern.
Editor’s note [FS]: Post title updated to replace “Hydrogen” with “Nuclear” bomb. North Korea contends that it was a hydrogen bomb, but that has not yet been confirmed.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY