Japan braces as North Korea threatens hydrogen bomb test in Pacific
Japan must brace itself for the possible launch of a nuclear-armed North Korean missile over its territory if the regime carries out a threat to test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean, Japan’s defence minister has warned. Itsunori Onodera said such a test could involve a nuclear device mounted on a medium-range or intercontinental ballistic missile. “We cannot deny the possibility it may fly over our country,” Onodera said, hours after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, said Donald Trump would “pay dearly” for threatening to destroy his regime.
The prospect of a major escalation in tensions in the region rose after North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, said Pyongyang could respond to Trump’s recent threat of military action by testing a powerful nuclear weapon in the Pacific. Ri, who is due to address the UN general assembly at the weekend, told reporters in New York: “It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific. We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un.”
Earlier, in an unprecedented personal statement, Kim said that he was considering retaliating at the “highest level” after Trump warned that the US would “totally destroy North Korea” if Washington was forced to defend itself or its allies. Earlier this month, North Korea detonated a powerful hydrogen bomb at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the north-east of the country. The explosion caused a 6.3 magnitude earthquake that was felt over the Chinese border in Yanji.
Testing a nuclear device beyond its own borders would mark a major escalation in tensions over the regime’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. Analysts said a nuclear test involving a missile could be “truly terrifying” if something goes wrong. An atmospheric nuclear test of the kind that has only ever been conducted by the US and China could pose a risk to aircraft and shipping, even if the North declares a keep-out zone, according to Vipin Narang, a nuclear strategy expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “And if the test doesn’t go according to plan, you could have population at risk, too,” Narang added. “We are talking about putting a live nuclear warhead on a missile that has been tested only a handful of times. It is truly terrifying if something goes wrong.”
Speculation is growing that North Korea will add to its robust verbal response to Trump’s UN speech on Tuesday with a military provocation, possibly a test of a Hwasong-14 missile, which is theoretically capable of reaching Hawaii and Alaska. Chung Sung-yoon, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said there was a “very high possibility” that Kim would follow through with a provocation of some sort.............
In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, Kim called Trump “mentally deranged” and warned him that he would “pay dearly for issuing threats to the regime during his maiden UN general assembly speech on Tuesday......
The North Korea leader is thought to be the first of three generations of the Kim dynasty to publicly read out a statement aimed at the international community in his own name. South Korea’s unification ministry said neither Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, nor his grandfather - and North Korean founder - Kim Il-sung, had issued a similar statement.
Kim said Trump’s remarks had convinced him “that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last”. He added that he was “thinking hard” about his response, but vowed that Trump would “pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying” North Korea. “Action is the best option in treating the dotard, who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say,” he said. “Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy [North Korea], we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”
His lengthy criticism of Trump ended: “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.”.......