North Korean military ambitions are a “serious threat” to the US, outgoing Pentagon chief Leon Panetta has said.
A KCNA newsreader announced the test, saying it had “great explosive power”
In a speech made after Pyongyang carried out its third nuclear test,
Mr Panetta likened the North to Iran, describing them as “rogue states”.
In New York, the UN Security Council “strongly condemned” the nuclear test.
The council said it would begin work on measures against North Korea,
after UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the test was a “clear and grave
violation”.
Earlier, Pyongyang said “even stronger” action might follow, saying its test was a response to US “hostility”.
North Korea warned the US in advance that it intended to conduct a
nuclear test, the state department said, but did not say when it would
happen.
US President Barack Obama spoke to his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak to coordinate a response.
He “unequivocally reaffirmed” the US defence commitment to South
Korea, “including the extended deterrence offered by the US nuclear
umbrella,” the White House said.
Nuclear test monitors in Vienna say the underground explosion had
double the force of the last test, in 2009, despite the use of a device
said by the North to be smaller.
If a smaller device was indeed tested, analysts said this could take
Pyongyang closer to building a warhead small enough to arm a missile.
UN sanctions on North Korea were expanded after the secretive
communist state launched a rocket in December, in a move condemned by
the UN as a banned test of missiletechnology.
Punqqye-ri nuclear test site
‘Stern’ message
North Korea’s latest nuclear test comes as senators in Washington
prepare for the first votes on whether to confirm Chuck Hagel as
successor to current Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.
In a farewell speech at the Pentagon, Mr Panetta said the US would
continue to be tested by unpredictable regimes in years to come.
“We’re going to have to deal with weapons of mass destruction and the
proliferation. We’re going to have to continue with rogue states like
Iran and North Korea.
“We just saw what North Korea’s done in these last few weeks – a
missile test and now a nuclear test. They represent a serious threat to
the United States of America. We’ve got to be prepared to deal with
that.”
President Obama, who is to make his State of the Union speech later,
called the test a “highly provocative act” and called for “swift” and
“credible” international action in response.
China, North Korea’s main ally and a veto-wielding member of the
Security Council, summoned North Korea’s ambassador to Beijing to
express its concern over the test.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi delivered a
“stern representation”‘ to Ji Jae Ryong and expressed China’s “strong
dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to the test, the Chinese foreign
ministry said in a statement.
Earlier, it urged the North to honour its commitment to
denuclearisation and “not take any actions which might worsen the
situation”.
The test was condemned by North Korea’s immediate neighbours, South
Korea and Japan, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for
a revival of talks on the North’s nuclear arms programme.
In a defiant message to the UN’s disarmament forum, the North said it
would never bow to resolutions on its nuclear programme and blamed the
failure of diplomacy on the US.
“The US and their followers are sadly mistaken if they miscalculate
the DPRK [North Korea] would respect the entirely unreasonable
resolutions against it,” the North’s envoy, Jon Yong Ryong, told the
Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
‘Miniaturised’ device
North Korea confirmed the test after international monitors recorded
seismic activity consistent with a powerful underground explosion at
11:57 (02:57 GMT) on Tuesday.
Activity had been observed at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site for several months.
State-run KCNA news agency said the test was “carried out at a high
level in a safe and perfect manner using a miniaturised and lighter
nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously”.
North Korea said the nuclear test was a response to the “reckless hostility of the United States”.
“The latest nuclear test was only the first action, with which we
exercised as much self-restraint as possible,” the foreign ministry said
in a statement.
“If the US further complicates the situation with continued
hostility, we will be left with no choice but to take even stronger
second or third rounds of action.”
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said North Korea would not benefit from violating international law.
Instead it had “increasingly isolated and impoverished its people
through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their
means of delivery,” Ms Rice said.
The Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation
said the “explosion-like event” was twice as big as the 2009 test, which
was in turn bigger than that in 2006.
It is the first such test under new leader Kim Jong-un, who took over
the leadership after his father Kim Jong-il died in December 2011.
The BBC’s Lucy Williamson, in Seoul, says the trouble, as ever, is
what the international community can do in response without triggering
an even bigger crisis – North Korea is already tied up in layers of
sanctions which do not seem to have any impact.
She adds that some in Washington have talked of maybe targeting North
Korean financial interests, but the only real pressure is seen to lie
with China.
By defying the UN and launching its nuclear test now, our
correspondent says, Pyongyang is giving the new leadership in Beijing a
very public test of its own.
BBC
By In2EastAfrica Reporter
