The Daily Journalist.
North Korea has launched today an enormous challenge to the international community, including neighboring China, to announce that it has completed its first test with a hydrogen bomb, much more powerful than conventional atomic devices that equipped so far its limited nuclear arsenal.
North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, whose birthday on the 8th, had already warned in December that his country had enough technology and capability to detonate a bomb of this type “to reliably defend the sovereignty and dignity of the nation “.
Early indications of unusual activity in the area of Punggye-ri-the scene of previous Nuclear-Test were recorded around 10:30 am when experts from countries such as China, Japan or the United States warned of an earthquake that the area would have reached 5.1 magnitude on the international scale that measures earthquakes.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency warned that the quake could be the result of a nuclear explosion, and had the same characteristics as those that occurred in the previous three tests by Pyongyang in the region.
At 12:30 local television North Korea confirmed that it was a nuclear test personally approved Kim Il Sung on day three.
“We have performed the test with the knowledge, technology and national efforts. It is an amazing event that will be remembered in a special way in the country’s history. North Korea adds with pride to the most advanced nuclear countries with the H-bomb, ” said the North Korean national agency KCNA.
“The United States has met North Korea hostile forces and increased the smear campaign about human rights improvements to hinder North Korea. So it is fair to have a pump H. The fate of North Korea may be protected by other forces than North Korea itself, “he said the statement read on state radio.
38 North website specializing in North Korean affairs, had reported in early December that satellite images indicated that he had discussed Pyongyang was digging a new tunnel in the area of Punggye-ri, in the vicinity of the other three underground enclaves that has been used for its previous nuclear tests.
38 had begun to acquire significant dynamics from April.
The four drilled underground galleries have been given different names depending on their geographic location around Mount Musan. The Portal del Este was the location that was used for the first trial by Pyongyang in 2006. The North Portal was used to test 2009 and 2013.
Other facilities in the South are still under construction and the new West Portal could have been done with this last test.
38 North information reinforced the suspicions of Seoul, which in October was leaked to the Yonhap news agency that “the increase in the movement of people and vehicles” in the area of nuclear tests was a sign that “North Korea appears to be in process of digging another tunnel. ”
Both South Korea and Japan have convened an emergency meeting of his political and military leaders to discuss the event.
An expert quoted by NK News nuance the potential impact of North Korea’s rudeness. “Branches? What ramifications? A little noise, maybe another resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations, but that will not change anything,” said Professor Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul.
The same analyst said that the main impact of this decision will be felt in Pyongyang relations with its neighbors and especially with China, with whom he seemed to have regained a certain proximity in recent months after a clear diplomatic tension in recent years precisely because Beijing’s opposition to the expansion of the North Korean nuclear program.
“In the short term it will have an impact but not in the long-term,” he said.
