South Korea warned North Korea on Wednesday that the United States and its allies were working on sanctions to inflict “bone-numbing pain” after its latest nuclear test, and called on China to do its part to rein in its isolated neighbor.
With tension high on the border after the North’s fourth nuclear test on Wednesday last week, South Korean forces fired shots toward what Yonhap News Agency said was a suspected North Korean drone.
It returned to the North after the shots, South Korean military officials told Reuters.
The North’s nuclear test has angered both China and the United States and again raised questions about what can be done to stop its development of nuclear weapons.
The World Economic Forum withdrew its invitation for North Korea’s foreign minister to attend its annual Davos meeting, which was to have been the country’s first participation in the event in 18 years, because of the nuclear test.
North Korea said it had tested a powerful hydrogen bomb but the United States and various experts doubt that, as the blast was roughly the same size as that from its previous test, of an atomic bomb, in 2013.
The US House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously on Tuesday to pass legislation to broaden sanctions on the North.
But apparently unperturbed by the prospect of further international isolation, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an expansion of the size and power of his country’s nuclear arsenal, urging the “detonation of more powerful H-bombs”, the North’s state media reported.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye said more “provocations” by the North including “cyber-terrorism” were possible and new sanctions should be tougher than previous ones. She did not give specifics.
“We are cooperating closely with the United States and allies to come up with effective sanctions that will make North Korea feel bone-numbing pain, not only at the Security Council but also bilaterally and multilaterally,” she said in a speech.
