North Korea Has Conducted Its 6th Nuclear Test, South Says

North Korea Confirm Nuclear Tests

Went off flawlessy . No radiation leaks 

By CHOE SANG-HUNSEPT. 2, 2017
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North Korea released a photo Sunday of what it said was a hydrogen bomb that could be fitted onto a missile. Hours later, a tremor indicated Pyongyang had conducted its sixth nuclear test. CreditKorean Central News Agency
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea carried out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, according to South Korea and Japan, an extraordinary show of defiance by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, against President Trump.

A seismic tremor detected at 12:36 p.m., emanating from the Punggye-ri underground nuclear test in northwestern North Korea, set off a scramble to determine whether the North had carried out another test. The South’s military soon confirmed that it had.

The United States Geological Survey estimated that the quake had a magnitude of 6.3. The South Korean Defense Ministry’s estimate was much lower, at 5.7, but even that would mean a blast “five to six times” as powerful as the North’s last nuclear test, a year ago, said Lee Mi-sun, a senior analyst at the South Korean Meteorological Administration.

Mr. Trump recently warned he would unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it continued to threaten the United States with nuclear missiles. Pyongyang, which in July launched an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the American mainland, responded to Mr. Trump by threatening to fire missiles into waters around Guam, a United States territory that is home to military bases.Photo

Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, at a military parade in Pyongyang in April. CreditWong Maye-E/Associated Press
Just last week, North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan, sharply escalating tensions in the region. And hours before the test on Sunday, the North claimed that it had developed a hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile.Continue reading the main story
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan called emergency meetings of their national security councils after the tremor was detected. Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Kano, said Japan had confirmed the nuclear test and requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Abe and Mr. Trump had spoken by telephone and resolved to put more pressure on North Korea.

North Korea has conducted a series of nuclear and ballistic missile tests since 2006. Its previous nuclear tests have produced increasingly larger blasts. The last test, in September 2016, yielded one about as powerful as the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.Photo

A United States Geological Survey map shows the location of an “explosion” with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3.CreditUnited States Geological Survey
In its fourth nuclear test, in January 2016, North Korea claimed to have used a hydrogen bomb. Other countries dismissed the claim for lack of evidence, but experts have said that the North may have tested a “boosted” atomic bomb, in which a small amount of thermonuclear fuel produced a slightly higher explosive yield but fell well short of a true hydrogen bomb.
Hours before the tremor was detected on Sunday, North Korea’s state news agency said the country had developed a hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile. The report offered no evidence for the claim, other than photos of Kim Jong-un, the country’s leader, inspecting what it said was the weapon.
It was unclear whether such a weapon may have been tested on Sunday.
Mr. Trump’s aides have concluded that his options in responding to a North Korean nuclear blast are limited. A strike on the North’s main nuclear and missile sites faces the same challenge it always has: the North’s ability to retaliate against Seoul, the South’s capital, which is within range of its artillery.
So for now, Mr. Trump has turned to the same strategy his predecessors have tried: increasing economic pressure and threatening military force, though Mr. Trump has used more provocative rhetoric about a potential military response than his predecessors did.Photo

Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan, spoke to reporters after a report that North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test. CreditKyodo News, via Associated Press
Another strategic consideration in responding to a nuclear blast is China, which for decades has been the North’s closest ally and its biggest trading partner. While China’s president, Xi Jinping, fears that a collapse in North Korea could lead to a wave of hungry refugees and a scramble for North Korea’s territory and nuclear weapons, he appears to have lost patience with Mr. Kim, recently agreeing to stronger United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang.
The test’s timing was a major embarrassment for Mr. Xi, who on Sunday was hosting a summit meeting of the so-called Brics countries — China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa. Cheng Xiaohe, a North Korea expert at Renmin University in Beijing, said the timing of the test — on the day of the summit meeting’s opening ceremony, in the Chinese city of Xiamen — appeared to be deliberate.

“This will test whether China is prepared to go ahead with more radical actions like cutting off oil supplies to North Korea,” Mr. Cheng said.

Peter Hayes, director of Nautilus, a United States-based research institute specializing in North Korea, said the test seemed intended to jolt Mr. Xi, and to convince him that he needed to persuade the United States to talk to North Korea.

“It’s aimed more at Xi than Trump,” Mr. Hayes said. “Kim Jong-un doesn’t have the leverage to get Washington to talk. Xi has real power to affect the calculations in Washington. He’s putting pressure on China to say to Trump, you have to sit down with Kim Jong-un.”