NORTH KOREA: A 3RD NUCLEAR TEST?

NORTH KOREA VOWS NUCLEAR TEST AS THREATS INTENSIFY

Choe Sang-hun

The New York Times, January 24, 2013

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea vowed on Thursday to launch more long-range rockets and conduct its third nuclear test, ratcheting up tensions following the United Nations Security Council’s decision to tighten sanctions against the country for launching a rocket last month.

In a statement issued through its state-run media, the National Defense Commission, the North’s highest governing agency, headed by its young leader Kim Jong-un, said that “a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the D.P.R.K. one after another and a nuclear test of higher level which will be carried out by it in the upcoming all-out action” will be aimed at deterring the hostile policy of “the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean people.”

The statement, which used the acronym for the North’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, did not clarify when it would conduct such a test, which would be the first since Mr. Kim came to power in December 2011. But citing preparations at the Punggye test site in northeastern North Korea, South Korean officials and news media said that Pyongyang can conduct a new underground nuclear test there on short notice.

North Korea had previously hinted at the possibility of conducting a nuclear test, as its Foreign Ministry did on Wednesday when it issued a scathing statement rejecting a unanimous resolution that the Security Council adopted on Tuesday. The resolution tightened sanctions and condemned North Korea’s Dec. 12 rocket launching as a violation of earlier resolutions banning the country from conducting any tests involving ballistic missile technology.

(...) [article here]