North Korea tests nuclear weapon 'as powerful as Hiroshima bomb'
Country risks further international isolation as underground nuclear explosion triggers earthquake
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 May 2009 16.17 BST
- Article history
North Korea today risked further international isolation after it claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile.
North Korean military honour guard standing to attention at Pyongyang's airport during a diplomatic visit. Photograph: Stephen Shaver/AFP/Getty Images
North Korea today risked further international isolation after it claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile.
The KNCA news agency, the regime's official mouthpiece, said: "We have successfully conducted another nuclear test on 25 May as part of the republic's measures to strengthen its nuclear deterrent."
Officials in South Korea said they had detected a tremor consistent with those caused by an underground nuclear explosion. The country's Yonhap news agency reported that the North had test-fired three short-range missiles from a base on the east coast immediately after the nuclear test.
The underground atomic explosion, at 9.54am local time (0154 BST), created an earthquake measuring magnitude 4.5 in Kilju county in the country's north-east, reports said.
President Barack Obama called the test a matter of grave concern to all countries. "North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community," he said in a statement. "North Korea's behaviour increases tensions and undermines stability in north-east Asia."
He added that North Korea's behaviour would serve only to deepen the country's isolation.
"It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery," he said.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he was "deeply worried" by the development.
The UN security council will hold an emergency meeting in New York later today to discuss its response to the latest escalation in the crisis. Obama and other leaders did not offer details on the council's possible response.
China, North Korea's key ally, said it was "resolutely opposed" to the test, urging its neighbour to avoid actions that would sharpen tensions and return to six-party arms-for-disarmament talks.
Japan, which considers itself high on the North's potential hit list, said it would seek a new resolution condemning the test.
Russian defence experts estimated the explosion's yield at between 10 and 20 kilotons, many times more than the 1 kiloton measured in its first nuclear test in 2006 and about as powerful as the bombs the US used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war. One kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tonnes of TNT.
The force of the blast made the ground tremble in the Chinese border city of Yanji, 130 miles away.
The North Korean news agency said the test had been "safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control. The test will contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and the region."
Gordon Brown described the test as "erroneous, misguided and a danger to the world". The prime minister added: "This act will undermine prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula and will do nothing for North Korea's security."
South Korea condemned the test, North Korea's second since it exploded its first nuclear device in October 2006 in defiance of international opinion. That test prompted the UN to pass a resolution banning Pyongyang from activities related to its ballistic missile programme.
The South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, convened a session of the country's security council after seismologists reported earthquakes in the Kilju region, site of the North's first nuclear test.
In Tokyo, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Takeo Kawamura, said the test was "a clear violation of the UN security council resolution and cannot be tolerated".
North Korea had warned of a second nuclear test after the UN condemned its test-launch of a ballistic missile on 5 April and agreed to tighten sanctions put in place in 2006.
Pyongyang insisted it had put a peaceful communications satellite in orbit, but experts said the technology and methods were identical to those used to launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile.
After the UN refused to apologise for condemning the launch, North Korea expelled international inspectors, threatened to restart its Yongbyon nuclear reactor – which it had agreed to start dismantling in 2007 – and walked away from six-party nuclear talks.
Today's test will add to fears that the North is moving closer to possessing the ability to mount a nuclear warhead on long-range missiles that are capable, in theory, of reaching Hawaii and Alaska.
"This test, if confirmed, could indicate North Korea's decision to work at securing actual nuclear capabilities," Koh Yu-hwan, a professor at Dongkuk University in Seoul, told Reuters.
"North Korea had been expecting the new US administration to mark a shift from the previous administration's stance, but is realising that there are no changes. It may have decided that a second test was necessary. [It] seems to be reacting to the US and South Korean administrations' policies."
Analysts believe the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, hopes to use the test to shore up support from the military amid mounting speculation that he is about to name one of his three sons as his successor.
Kim, 67, appears to be re-establishing his grip on power since reportedly suffering a stroke last August. Today's test is a direct challenge to attempts by Obama to engage the North and stem the spread of nuclear weapons.
Despite promising a fresh start to bilateral relations, Obama, who denounced last month's missile launch as "a provocation," has so far failed to persuade North Korean to enter into negotiations.
Kim Myong-chol, executive director of the Centre for Korean-American Peace in Tokyo, who is close to Pyongyang, said the test was a reminder that North Korea "is going it alone as a nuclear power".
"North Korea doesn't need any talks with America. America is tricky and undesirable," he said. "It does not implement its own agreements.
"We are not going to worry about sanctions. If they sanction us, we will become more powerful. Sanctions never help America; they are counter-productive … We don't care about America and what they say."
North Korea Claims to Conduct 2nd Nuclear Test
South Korea’s nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac, center, and other officers at an emergency meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea announced on Monday that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test, defying international warnings and dramatically raising the stakes in a global effort to get the recalcitrant Communist state to give up its nuclear weapons program.
Multimedia
This undated picture, released by the North Korean official news agency on May 23, shows North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, inspecting an air force unit.
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The North’s official news agency, KCNA, said, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians.”
The test was safely conducted “on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control,” the agency said. “The results of the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology.”
The test clearly caught South Korea and the United States off guard, and the news hit just as South Korea’s government and people were mourning the suicide of former President Roh Moo-hyun. And hours after the test was reported, South Korean media reported that the North had fired a short-range missile.
The nuclear test comes against a backdrop of uncertainty about North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, and increased speculation about who might succeed him. Mr. Kim suffered a stroke last August, which prompted him to step up preparations to transfer power to one of his three known sons. Analysts believe the favorite son is his youngest, Kim Jong-un, who is in his mid-20s.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test on Oct. 9, 2006, which was considered something of a bust by South Korean and American officials. North Korea had given some advance notice before that test, which, like Monday’s test, also was conducted in the country’s northeast.
Pyongyang had recently threatened to conduct a second nuclear test, citing what it called Washington’s “hostilities.”
If the North’s latest test was more of a success, it could mean that North Korea has bolstered its atomic weapons capabilities — and its leverage over the United States, which has sought to denuclearize the North.
In Washington, the Obama administration had a cautious initial reaction to the news early Monday. “We are aware of the reports of a nuclear test by North Korea,” said a senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the department was still gathering information. “We are consulting with our allies. Once we have established the facts, we will have more to say.”
There was no immediate reaction to the test from the Chinese foreign ministry, but China’s official news agency, Xinhua, cited concern by officials in Japan, Russia and the European Union. Japan was expected to call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Xinhau said.
Hints that the North had conducted a new test first emerged Monday morning when South Korean authorities detected an artificially triggered tremor emanating from the area of Kilju, in northeastern North Korea, said Lee Dong-kwan, spokesman of the office of President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea.
The spokesman said “intelligence officials of South Korea and the United States are analyzing the data and closely monitoring the situation.”
Earlier Monday, North Korea announced that Kim Jong-il had sent a message expressing “profound condolences” to the widow of Mr. Roh, who had pursued a more conciliatory policy toward the North. It remained unclear whether Mr. Kim would send a delegation to Mr. Roh’s funeral slated for Friday.
Relations between the Koreas have deteriorated since Mr. Roh’s successor, Mr. Lee, took office in February 2008, promising to reverse the “sunshine policy” of promoting political reconciliation with Pyongyang with economic aid.
Agreements resulting from a 2007 summit meeting called for the South to spend billions of dollars to help rebuild the impoverished North’s dilapidated infrastructure. Mr. Lee believed that such aid must be linked to improvements in the North’s human rights record and the dismantling of its nuclear facilities.
North Korea has viciously attacked Mr. Lee, calling him a “national traitor,” cutting off official dialogue and reducing traffic across the countries’ heavily armed border.
The new test comes against a backdrop of heightened tensions between North Korea and the United States, which keeps a heavy military deployment in South Korea.
Two American journalists are scheduled to be tried June 4 in North Korea, charged with illegal entry into the North and “hostile acts,” and that case in particular has aggravated tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. The relationship was already strained by the North’s launching of a long-range rocket on April 5.
After that launch, Washington pressed the United Nations Security Council to tighten sanctions on the North. In retaliation, Pyongyang expelled United Nations nuclear monitors, while threatening to restart a plant that makes weapons-grade plutonium and to conduct a nuclear test.
This month, one day after an American diplomat offered new talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, the North said it had become useless to talk further with the United States.
“The study of the policy pursued by the Obama administration for the past 100 days since its emergence made it clear that the U.S. hostile policy toward the D.P.R.K. remains unchanged,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said, using the initials for the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
In comments carried by KCNA, the ministry said: “There is nothing to be gained by sitting down together with a party that continues to view us with hostility.”
The rebuff came as Stephen W. Bosworth, the American special envoy on North Korea, began a trip to Asia with a fresh offer of dialogue. The North’s vow to “bolster its nuclear deterrent” came just hours before Mr. Bosworth was due to arrive in Seoul.
The North’s first nuclear test in 2006 was widely condemned, but it created a new urgency in the six-party talks that had failed to prevent the blast. The parties to the talks are the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
In February 2007, Washington agreed to ease sanctions against banks dealing with Pyongyang, and North Korea concurrently agreed to a process that would lead to the dismantling of its nuclear weapons program. North Korea would receive deliveries of fuel oil in exchange for certain verifications that it was ending its program.
But last December the process collapsed when North Korea rejected the verification measures being sought by the Bush administration.
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