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US and Asia allies vow steep price for North Korea nuclear test

Agence France-Presse

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US and Asia allies vow steep price for North Korea nuclear test

EPA

(UPDATED) The leaders of the US, Japan, and South Korea speak by phone a day after Pyongyang's shock announcement that it had tested its first hydrogen bomb

SEOUL, South Korea (UPDATED) – The United States and its two main military allies in Asia, South Korea and Japan, pledged a combined push Thursday to secure a comprehensive, hard-hitting international response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

The leaders of the three countries, who have long sought to project a united front against the North Korean nuclear threat, spoke by phone a day after Pyongyang’s shock announcement that it had tested its first hydrogen bomb.

While the announcement prompted widespread condemnation and calls for stiff sanctions against the secretive state, it was also greeted with some skepticism, with experts suggesting the apparent yield was far too low for a thermonuclear device.

In Seoul, the government took unilateral action by announcing the resumption of high-decibel propaganda broadcasts into the North – a tactic that had prompted Pyongyang to threaten military strikes when it was last employed during a cross-border crisis last year. 

The consultations between the US, Japan and South Korea followed a meeting of the 15-member UN Security Council in New York which, with backing from China, Pyongyang’s sole major ally, strongly condemned the test and said it would begin work on a new UN draft resolution that would contain “further significant measures”.

UN diplomats confirmed that talks were under way on strengthening several sets of sanctions that have been imposed on North Korea since it first tested an atomic device in 2006. 

Anger in South Korea

In South Korea, the mood was uncompromising, with President Park Geun-Hye calling for a strong international response to what she called a “grave provocation”.

Park spoke with US President Barack Obama on Thursday morning, with both leaders insisting that the test merited the “most powerful and comprehensive sanctions,” her presidential office said in a statement.

“The two leaders agreed that the North should pay the appropriate price… and vowed to closely cooperate to get a strong resolution adopted at the UN Security Council,” it added.

The White House, for its part, condemned North Korea’s “latest reckless behavior”.  

“President Obama reaffirmed the unshakeable US commitment to the security of the ROK (Republic of Korea),” the statement said, using the acronym for South Korea’s official name.

Seoul said it would resume propaganda broadcasts using batteries of giant speakers along the border with North Korea from noon on Friday.

The move is likely to infuriate Pyongyang which, during an extended and increasingly hostile cross-border stand-off last year, had issued Seoul with an ultimatum to halt the broadcasts or face imminent attack.

The South only unplugged the speakers following a compromise accord reached on August 25.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also spoke with Obama on Thursday and agreed that they should spearhead the effort to impose harsher penalties on Pyongyang.

“We will take firm and resolute steps, including considering measures unique to our nation,” Abe said, hinting at unilateral moves.

Call for new sanctions

Park and Abe also spoke by phone and made similar pledges to work together inside the UN Security Council.

The censure and sanctions threats had a familiar ring, given similar outrage that greeted the North’s previous tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, and some voices stressed the need to find a strategy that combined coercion with negotiation.

“A priority must be to find ways to both further pressure North Korea to limit its nuclear weapons capabilities and engage it diplomatically,” said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

Acquisition of a working H-bomb – with a destructive power that dwarfs the bombs it has tested in the past – would represent a massive leap forward in the North’s nuclear weapons capability.

In announcing that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, North Korea said it had “joined the rank of advanced nuclear states” like Russia, France and the US that also boast thermonuclear devices.

The order for the test was personally signed by leader Kim Jong-Un, with a handwritten message to begin 2016 with the “thrilling sound of the first hydrogen bomb explosion”.

At the UN, US Ambassador Samantha Power called for a “tough, comprehensive and credible package of new sanctions” to make clear to Pyongyang that there are “real consequences” to its actions.

But there was no real clarity on what form the sanctions might take, or when the package would be drawn up.

All eyes at the UN will now be on China, a veto-wielding council member, to see just how far it will go in tightening the sanctions grip on its recalcitrant neighbor.

But Beijing’s leverage over Pyongyang is mitigated, analysts say, by its overriding fear of a North Korean collapse and the prospect of a reunified, US-allied Korea directly on its border. Hwang Sung-Hee, AFP / Rappler.com

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