World leaders slammed North Korea on Wednesday for carrying out a fourth nuclear test, an explosion that Pyongyang claimed was a powerful hydrogen bomb but whose strength was strongly questioned by international experts and American officials.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said initial data from various monitoring sources were “not consistent with North Korean claims of a successful hydrogen bomb test.”
Nuclear monitors also said the magnitude of the blast suggested an atomic explosion rather than one produced by an exponentially more powerful hydrogen device — potentially more than 1,000 times more destructive than the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima near the end of World War II.
[A look behind the North’s claim]
In New York, meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council gathered in an emergency session and strongly denounced the reported test as a “clear threat to international peace and security,” said Elbio Rosselli, the envoy from Uruguay, which currently holds the council presidency.
He said the council would begin work on a new resolution. But Rosselli did not specify possible further U.N. measures against the North, which described the device as an “H-bomb of justice” needed for defense against the United States.
“Regardless of whether this is a hydrogen test or a normal, vanilla device, this is a very serious provocation,” said James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
North Korea’s three previous nuclear tests since 2006 have been met with international condemnation, including resolutions and sanctions from the Security Council. But the response has done nothing to deter Pyongyang.
Despite the widespread skepticism about the North’s assertion, data from the blast will be carefully scrutinized for any hints of technological advances in its nuclear program. Even incremental progress would demonstrate that the North has been able to develop its expertise despite international sanctions and other pressures.
[Watch: North Korea’s broadast]
The test also appeared part of efforts by the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to project strength at a time when the country faces increasingly isolation, including growing strains in its critical lifeline with China.
The North’s renegade status has been further underscored by the nuclear deal reached last year between Iran and world powers, including the United States and China. Under the pact, Tehran agreed to limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of international sanctions.
A confirmed North Korean nuclear test would be the 2,055th since 1945 VIEW GRAPHIC
Over the past decade, Iran has developed capacities to make nuclear material, but its leaders insist they do not seek an atomic weapon.
In contrast, North Korea “is apparently willing to accept international isolation,” said Earnest.
In Vienna, Lassina Zerbo, the executive secretary the watchdog group monitoring the nuclear test treaty, said seismic reading on Wednesday was “slightly down” compared with the level from the North’s last nuclear test in 2013.
A full analysis could take days as experts look at other data including airborne radioactive isotopes, said Zerbo.
A U.S. dry fuel hydrogen, or theronuclear, bomb tested in 1954 at Bikini Atoll in 1954 had a yield of 15 megatons, making it more than 1,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.
In Seoul, South Korean President Park Geun-hye put her military on alert and said North Korea would pay a price for the test, which she called a “grave provocation.” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a similar message, describing it as “a major threat” that Japan “absolutely cannot accept.”
The United States pledged to stand by its allies in the region.
“We do not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear armed state, and actions such as this latest test only strengthen our resolve,” said a statement from Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
[North Korea also tests limits of Chinese ties]
“The answer to North Korea’s threats is more pressure, not less,” said Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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But the severity of any international response will depend on the level of political will in China and Russia, both veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council and both the closest thing North Korea has to friends.
After a nuclear test in 2013, the first of Kim’s tenure as North Korea’s leader, China supported expanded sanctions against the country, although it’s not clear how strictly Beijing has enforced the restrictions on its neighbor.
Still, China also condemned the test Wednesday.
“Today [North Korea] 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.
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.
Russia, which declared 2015 a “year of friendship” with North Korea, also condemned the detonation and called for international nuclear talks with North Korea to resume.
[North Korea’s leader: Scary funny]
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave Kim a rare foreign invitation for a visit last year, ordered a full study of data from Russia’s monitoring stations, said the spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
“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. It said it needed the weapon for defense against the United States, which it described as “the chieftain of aggression” and a “gang of cruel robbers.”
“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 were immediate questions about the claim. Nuclear experts noted 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.
Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Calif., said Wednesday’s explosion looked very similar to past tests and was not enormous, suggesting it was not a hydrogen bomb.
Either way, Pyongyang’s action presents a new challenge to the outside world, which has struggled to find ways to end 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.
Simon Denyer in Beijing, Michael Birnbaum in Moscow, Yoonjung Seo in Seoul, Yuki Oda in Tokyo and Carol Morello and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
