South Korea announced it was joining a US-led initiative aimed at intercepting shipments suspected of carrying equipment for weapons of mass destruction. -- PHOTO: AFP
SEOUL - NORTH Korea, condemned by the international community for its latest nuclear test, on Tuesday accused the United States of being hostile and was reportedly ready to test-fire more short-range missiles.
SCALE OF BLAST DEBATED
Analysts said the North opted for a nuclear test sooner than expected to draw the attention of the Obama administration and to raise the stakes for potential direct negotiations. It also sought to strengthen the power base of leader Kim Jong-il to lay the ground for succession, they said.
Russia said the blast was about equal in power to the US atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in World War Two. That bomb had an explosion of about 20 kilotons. Other estimates said the North's nuclear device had a lower yield. One kiloton equals 1,000 tonnes and indicates the explosive yield of about that much weight of TNT.
WASHINGTON - NORTH Korea informed the United States of its nuclear test less than an hour before the widely condemned explosion, a US official confirmed on Monday.
A senior administration official said on condition of anonymity that the North informed the US State Department of 'its intention to conduct a nuclear test, without citing a specific timing'.
In a move likely to heighten tension in the region, South Korea said it would join a US-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, something Pyongyang has warned it would consider a declaration of war.
Monday's nuclear test, the North's second after one in 2006, drew a sharp rebuke from regional powers, and US President Barack Obama called Pyongyang's atomic arms programme a threat to international security.
Pyongyang said the United States was being hostile, its long-held argument to justify efforts to build a nuclear arsenal, which years of international negotiations have failed to block.
In a unanimous statement adopted just hours after the nuclear blast, the UN Security Council decided to start work immediately on a new resolution, condemning the test as a 'clear violation' of a previous resolution banning such tests in 2006.
'The members of the Security Council have decided to start work immediately on a Security Council resolution on this matter,' said the nonbinding statement read after a closed-door meeting by Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
The North also fired off three short-range missiles from its east coast missiles bases on Monday.
The Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying it was likely to launch more, this time from its west coast, either on Tuesday of Wednesday.
The nuclear test has drawn outrage in the South, which is still mourning Saturday's apparent suicide of former President Roh Moo Hyun.
It is also bound to raise concerns about proliferation, a major worry of the United States which has in the past accused Pyongyang of trying try to sell its nuclear know-how to states such as Syria. -- REUTERS
