SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea said it conducted a “higher level” nuclear test explosion on Friday that will allow it to finally build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons, a move strongly condemned by the U.N. Security Council, which promised new measures against Pyongyang.
The North’s fifth atomic test and the second in eight months brought the U.N.’s most powerful body into emergency session, just three days after it strongly condemned North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launches.
South Korea’s president said the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the North’s biggest-ever in explosive yield, was an act of “fanatic recklessness” and a sign that leader Kim Jong Un “is spiraling out of control.” President Barack Obama condemned the test and said the U.S. would never accept the country as a nuclear power.
North Korea’s boast of a technologically game-changing nuclear test defied both tough international sanctions and long-standing diplomatic pressure to curb its nuclear ambitions. It will raise serious worries in many world capitals that North Korea has moved another step closer to its goal of a nuclear-armed missile that could one day strike the U.S. mainland.
The press statement agreed upon by all 15 Security Council members late Friday said diplomats will draft a new resolution in response to its earlier promise to take “further significant measures,” if the North continued to defy the international community.
“In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures” in a new U.N. resolution, the statement said. The measures will be under Article 41 of the U.N. Charter, which specifies nonmilitary actions including sanctions, it said.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the council must use “every tool at its disposal” including new sanctions “to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for its unlawful and dangerous actions.”
“This is more than brazen defiance,” Power told reporters at U.N. headquarters. “North Korea is seeking to perfect its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strikes.”
What measures are included in a new resolution will largely depend on China, the North’s major ally and neighbor that fears any instability on the Korean peninsula.
“All sides should refrain from mutual provocations and any actions that might be a threat to peace and security,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi said after the meeting. “We believe it is more urgent than ever to work together to achieve denuclearization of the Korean peninsula [and] “to prevent proliferation and ... maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.”
In March, the Security Council adopted its toughest sanctions against North Korea in two decades in response to its nuclear test in January and a rocket launch.
It took two months of negotiations mainly between the U.S. and China.
South Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Oh Joon said he hopes an agreement on a new resolution will come quickly.