North Korea grabs world attention with new atomic bomb test
Updated
An emergency United Nations Security Council meeting is on the cards after North Korea unexpectedly grabbed international attention with a second and large nuclear test. While the blast is yet to be confirmed, it is thought to have had the force of about 20 kilotonnes, similar to the atomic bomb dropped on Japan's city of Nagasaki in 1945. That's vastly bigger than Pyongyang's previous test in October 2006.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speaker: Stephen Smith, Australian foreign minister; Kazuo Kodama, Japanese foreign ministry spokesperson; Hassan Wirajuda, Indonesian foreign minister
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MOTTRAM: Incensed at global condemnation of its missile test last month, and always apparently mindful of the attention it gets by defying the international order, the reclusive regime in Pyongyang was expected to conduct another nuclear test, though perhaps not this soon. In many of the world's capitals, news of a seismic event measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale quickly drew out the words 'grave concern'. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, concluded parliamentary question time in Canberra, saying it was a deeply disturbing development. His foreign minister, Stephen Smith, had earlier registered Australia's anger and alarm.
SMITH: North Korea is in flagrant breach of its international obligations, is in flagrant breach of United Nations Security Council resolution 1718, and as such stands condemned.
MOTTRAM: Mr Smith said Australia would join the call for a U.N. security council meeting and he listed Australia's demands of North Korea.
SMITH: There is only one option for North Korea. It should immediately desist from all of these provocative acts, it should immediately comply with United Nations security council resolutions, in particular resolution 1718, and it should immediately resume the six party talks.
MOTTRAM: Japan also declared the test to be in clear violation of U.N. resolutions and said it could not be allowed. A crisis room was set up in the prime minister's office in Tokyo. Japan's Kazuo Kodama spoke to journalists.
KODAMA: We are certainly going to respond in a very responsible manner. Definitely we are going to respond, we have to, at the U.N. security council.
MOTTRAM: And even as the security council was preparing yet another emergency meeting on the running sore of international politics that is North Korea, the United States and European nations also voiced deep concern and issued condemnation. And a major meeting in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi suddenly found a new issue on its agenda. Representatives of 45 nations, including at least 30 foreign ministers, are attending the two day Asia-Europe Meeting, known as ASEM. And where it was to have been discussing ways out of the current global financial and economic mess, the attention suddenly shifted.
Indonesia's foreign minister, Hassan Wirajuda, voiced that meeting's alarm at the developments on the Korean Peninsula.
WIRAJUDA: Certainly the nuclear test just conducted by the North Korean side has created new tensions in the northeast Asian regions, in the Korean peninsula, and which in turn would affect the peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.
MOTTRAM: And in South Korea, investors took fright with the markets falling, on top of the already negative impact of former president Roh Moo-hyun's suspicious death. Current president Lee Myung-bak convened an emergency security meeting.
The question is whether Pyongyang, which had been threatening to restart its nuclear program, presents a real threat or whether it's attention seeking, in particular testing US president Barack Obama's attempts to reach out to isolated regimes, like North Korea's. There's also the ongoing matter of Pyongyang's political arrangements, questions of accession which complicate assessments of what's really motivating the regime.
Regardless, China's response will be key. Beijing delivered a rare, public rebuke to North Korea over its first nuclear test. With the six party disarmament talks now stalled, though, Beijing, which gives diplomatic cover to Pyongyang and provides it vital economic aid, has a balancing act to perform. It's unlikely to speak out this time. And it has a veto on the security council, making it likely that its deliberations will again been strained and possible unfruitful.
Meanwhile, reports on Russia's Itar-Tass newsagency quote a senior official at Pyongyang's Moscow embassy as saying that unless the United States ends its intimidation, more North Korean nuclear tests are likely.
