SEOUL: North Korea on Saturday sought to justify its weapons programme as a defence against US nuclear “blackmail” as world powers debated ways to punish Pyongyang for its fifth and most powerful atomic test.
South Korea said the nuclear threat from its wayward neighbour was growing fast and called for tough new sanctions from the UN Security Council to force it to change tack.
The yield from Friday’s test, which sparked international shockwaves, was estimated at 10 kilotons — almost twice as much as the one Pyongyang conducted only eight months ago.
The North also boasted that the test was of a nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.
“It is believed that the North’s nuclear capability is becoming more advanced to a considerable level, and at a faster pace,” Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told senior ministry officials, calling for “more and stronger sanctions”.
The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that — even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the North’s drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.
During a closed-door meeting on Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the UN charter, which provides for sanctions.
“The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under Article 41 in a Security Council resolution,” New Zealand’s ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council’s rotating presidency, told reporters.
South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site.
In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un and called for “strong retaliation”, including pre-emptive attacks on the North’s nuclear complex.
“Eliminate Kim Jong-Un!” and “Destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons!” the elderly activists shouted.
Published in Dawn September 11th, 2016
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