North Korea threatens nuke test if UN doesn't apologise

from The Washington Post....

North Korea’s claims of testing its first hydrogen bomb draws skepticism, condemnations

By ANNA FIFIELD | 2:04AM EST - Wednesday, January 06, 2016

People watch a television news program showing North Korea's announcement, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea.
— Photograph: Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press.

TOKYO — North Korea claimed on Wednesday that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, a claim that, if true, would mark a huge step forward in its nuclear capability.

“The first H-bomb test was successfully conducted,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement issued shortly after a special announcement was broadcast on state-run television.

Calling the device an “H-bomb of justice,” North Korea said it needed the weapon for defense against the United States, which it described as “the chieftain of aggression, watching for a chance for attack on it with huge nukes of various types.”

“Nothing is more foolish than dropping a hunting gun before herds of ferocious wolves,” the statement said in North Korea's trademark colorful prose.

But there was some skepticism about the claim, with nuclear experts noting that the yield appeared to be similar to North Korea's three previous atomic tests, rather than the “enormous” yield that would be expected if it had been a thermonuclear explosion.

In Washington, the State Department said it was monitoring the situation.

“While we cannot confirm these claims at this time, we condemn any violation of UN Security Council Resolutions and again call on North Korea to abide by its international obligations and commitments,” said John Kirby, the State Department spokesman. “We have consistently made clear that we will not accept it as a nuclear state. We will continue to protect and defend our allies in the region, including [South] Korea, and will respond appropriately to any and all North Korean provocations.”

Either way, Pyongyang's provocative action will present a new challenge to the outside world, which has struggled to find ways to bring about an end to North Korea's nuclear defiance.

“North Korea's fourth test — in the context of repeated statements by U.S., Chinese, and South Korean leaders — throws down the gauntlet to the international community to go beyond paper resolutions and find a way to impose real costs on North Korea for pursuing this course of action,” said Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kim Jong Un's regime hinted in December that it had built a hydrogen bomb to “defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation.” Some analysts were doubtful, saying the young leader appeared primarily concerned with trying to bolster his legitimacy.

Hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bombs are exponentially more powerful and destructive than atomic devices. An atomic bomb uses fission to break up the atomic nucleus and release energy, while a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb uses fusion to add to the nucleus. This leads to an enormous explosion resulting from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining chain reaction.

Kim has repeatedly asserted North Korea's status as a nuclear-armed country and has resolutely refused to return to multilateral talks aimed at persuading it to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea had conducted three nuclear tests since 2006 but only one during Kim's reign, in February 2013.To the surprise of many analysts, there had been no fourth test.

Then, there were signs of unusual seismic activity around North Korea’s main nuclear test site Wednesday morning, sparking fears that Pyongyang had ordered the detonation of another atomic device two days before Kim's birthday.

Earthquake agencies in China, Japan and the United States all recorded unusual seismic activity in the northeastern corner of North Korea at 10 a.m. local time. The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 5.1-magnitude quake at ground level about 20 miles from the facility at Punggye-ri, where North Korea has carried out its three previous nuclear tests.

Many analysts have been surprised that such a long period has passed without another test, because it is by testing that North Korea can advance its program.

“I think they have a technological path in mind,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.

In December, Lewis noted that satellite pictures showed North Korea appeared to be building a new tunnel at its nuclear test site, warning that the Pyongyang regime might be preparing to conduct a fourth atomic test. “There is a lot of tunneling at the test site, which could mean they have a bunch of tests planned,” he said.

Although analysts were still awaiting more data, Lewis said that Wednesday's explosion looked very similar to past tests and was not enormous, suggesting it was not a hydrogen bomb.

Joel Wit, a former U.S. diplomat who runs the 38 North website dedicated to North Korea, added that the purpose of the test remained unclear.

“What is clear is that North Korea is moving forward with its nuclear weapons program and that the United States, China and the international community need to come up with more effective ways to deal with this growing threat,” he said.

Previous nuclear tests have been met with international condemnation, including resolutions from the U.N. Security Council, but have done nothing to deter Pyongyang. The Security Council Wednesday scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the test.

In Seoul and Tokyo, the governments called emergency national security meetings. “This nuclear test by North Korea is a major threat to our country's security, and I absolutely cannot accept it,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters. “Also, it is clearly a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions so … we will take strong measures, including steps within the U.N. Security Council.”

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said North Korea would pay the price for the test, which she called a “grave provocation.”

“Now, the government should closely cooperate with the international community to make sure that North Korea pays the corresponding price for the nuclear test,” Park said in a national security council meeting, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

China, North Korea's closest ally and a veto-wielding permanent member of the security council, also condemned the test.

“Today the DPRK ignored the general objection from the international community and conducted a nuclear test once again. As to this matter, China strongly opposes,” Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters in Beijing Wednesday.

“China will resolutely promote the goal of denuclearization on the peninsula, and stick to solving the peninsula nuclear issues through the six party talk framework,” she said, referring to long-defunct multilateral talks aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.

She said China knew nothing in advance about the nuclear test.

“China will keep fulfilling its international obligations that it should fulfill, and make efforts together with the international community to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula,” she told reporters.

“China strongly opposes North Korea's nuclear test and will summon North Korean high officials, ambassador, to lodge our solemn representations,” she said.

Although China remains North Korea's biggest patron, relations have been severely strained since Kim took power and detonated a nuclear device a month before Xi Jinping took over as president of China.

In Russia, which has bolstered its ties with North Korea in recent years, one senior official condemned the detonation.

“Any action of the DPRK in this area directly affects the national security of our country,” wrote Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee of Russia's upper house of parliament, on Facebook.

But turning the focus on Russia's conflict with the west, Kosachev complained that the United States had not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He said that the failure to do so had emboldened North Korea to do as it pleased.

• Simon Denyer in Beijing, Michael Birnbaum in Moscow, Yoonjung Seo in Seoul and Yuki Oda in Tokyo contributed to this report.

• Anna Fifield is The Washington Post's bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-says-it-has-conducted-a-successful-hydrogen-bomb-test/2016/01/06/9add0e52-b436-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html

from The Washington Post....

Q&A: Why is North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test such a big deal?

By ANNA FIFIELD | 3:10AM EST - Wednesday, January 06, 2016

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claps his hands during a photo session with participants of the Fourth National Conference
of War Veterans in front of the Fatherland Liberation War Martyrs Cemetery in this undated photo released by North Korea's
Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on July 30th, 2015.

NORTH KOREA's claim on Wednesday that it had tested a hydrogen bomb alarmed Pyongyang's Asian neighbors — and the rest of the world. We take a look at what's behind this new North Korean claim.

Is this a big deal? We already knew they had nukes, right?

It's a big deal because a hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb is much, much more powerful.

The “Little Boy” atomic bomb that the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of 15 kilotons, while the “Fat Man” dropped on Nagasaki a few days later had a yield of 20 kilotons. By comparison, the dry fuel hydrogen bomb that the U.S. tested at Bikini Atoll in 1954 had a yield of 15 megatons — making it more than 1,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.

Here's how Kim Du-yeon of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains it:

It's basically a difference in the technical process by which an explosion is obtained and in the explosive power (measured in yield). An atomic bomb uses fission and an H-bomb uses fusion. An H-bomb (thermonuclear bomb) has an exponentially greater yield (thousands of times more powerful). It includes an atomic bomb inside its core that acts as a trigger.

Was this a surprise?

Not really. North Korea had hinted that this might be coming. In December, Kim Jong Un said his country was “a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation.” And before that, the North Korean ambassador to London had said in a speech that North Korea had weapons that were “ten times as powerful” as the nuclear devices it had previously detonated.

It sounds like the end is nigh. Is it really?

Hold on there. There's still a considerable degree of skepticism about whether this really was a hydrogen bomb that was tested today. Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, says a few words of caution are in order.

Here's what he wrote on 38 North after Kim’s claim in December:

Building a staged thermonuclear weapon — one in which the radiation from a fission primary compresses a secondary stage of thermonuclear fuel — seems to be a bit of a stretch for the North Koreans. That is the sort of device one normally thinks about when someone says “H-bomb”. Thermonuclear weapons are tricky; making one work requires a bit of test experience. While the North Koreans finally conducted an unambiguously successful nuclear test in 2013, the 2006 and 2009 tests were less so.

South Korean lawmakers on the parliamentary intelligence committee told local reporters that the supposed hydrogen bomb that North Korea tested Wednesday had a yield of about 6 kilotons — making it about the same size as North Korea's 2013 atomic test and a much smaller explosion than usually associated with hydrogen.

Why now?

It's Kim Jong Un's birthday on Friday — probably his 33rd, although it could be his 32nd, such is the paucity of our knowledge about the “Great Successor” — so the launch could be an early gift for him. The leaders' birthdays are always celebrated with a lot of fanfare in North Korea, although this is more true of Kim Il Sung, the founding president and the current leader's grandfather, and of Kim Jong Il, the second in the dynasty.

More likely this is all about preparing for the much-awaited Seventh Congress of the Korean Workers' Party in May this year, the first in 36 years.

As Toshimitsu Shigemura, a North Korea specialist at Waseda University in Tokyo, puts it: “Kim Jong Un needs great results before the party congress in May. His father didn't test a hydrogen bomb but now he can say that he has. That's a very great result for him.”

So what happens now?

Regardless of whether the explosion was atomic or thermonuclear, it was a brazen provocation and a clear defiance of international treaties. So get ready for lots of international condemnation and some stern words at the United Nations. Already North Korea's neighbors — South Korea, Japan and China — have sternly criticized the test, and the the United States is getting ready to do so, once it's confirmed. The U.N. Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting.

The question is: will the Security Council be able to pass a resolution with teeth?

The Security Council has adopted four major resolutions since North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006 — one after each of the 2006, 2009 and 2013 tests, and another after a satellite launch in December 2012. All have imposed sanctions on North Korea and sought to both stop it from getting the equipment it needs to develop its nuclear weapons program and to convince it to give up the pursuit of nuclear capability. Clearly, none of these have had much, if any, impact.

Will this time be different?

Well, it really depends how mad China is. In 2013, China — North Korea's closest ally and a veto-wielding permanent member of the council — was so angry with Pyongyang that it did support a resolution that expanded the sanctions regime, notably by making it more difficult for North Korea to transfer money.

But as mad as Beijing gets, it still has its eye on the bigger picture: it doesn't want North Korea to collapse and send millions of hungry refugees over China's north-eastern border, and nor does it want the American troops currently in South Korea up on that border. So China's primary interest is stability. But don't expect Xi Jinping to be at the Congress in May.

• Anna Fifield is The Washington Post's bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

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