North Korea \u201crecently succeeded\u201d in making a more advanced hydrogen bomb that will be loaded on to intercontinental ballistic missiles, the country\u2019s official KCNA news agency said.<\/p>\n
North Korea said on Sunday it has developed an advanced hydrogen bomb that possesses \u201cgreat destructive power\u201d as US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe talked by phone about the \u201cescalating\u201d nuclear crisis.<\/p>\n
The report by North Korea\u2019s official KCNA news agency comes amid heightened regional tension following Pyongyang\u2019s two tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in July that potentially could fly about 10,000km, putting many parts of the mainland US within range.<\/p>\n
Under third-generation leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been pursuing a nuclear device small and light enough to fit on a long-range ballistic missile, without affecting its range and making it capable of surviving re-entry into the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n
North Korea, which carries out its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions, \u201crecently succeeded\u201d in making a more advanced hydrogen bomb that will be loaded on to an ICBM, KCNA said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe H-bomb, the explosive power of which is adjustable from tens kiloton to hundreds kiloton, is a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack according to strategic goals,\u201d KCNA said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll components of the H-bomb were homemade and all the processes … were put on the Juche basis, thus enabling the country to produce powerful nuclear weapons as many as it wants,\u201d KCNA quoted Kim as saying.<\/p>\n
Juche is North Korea\u2019s homegrown ideology of self-reliance that is a mix of Marxism and extreme nationalism preached by state founder Kim Il Sung, the current leader\u2019s grandfather. It says its weapons programmes are needed to counter US aggression.<\/p>\n
North Korea offered no evidence for its latest claim, and Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at Kyungnam University\u2019s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, was sceptical.<\/p>\n
\u201cReferring to tens to hundreds of kilotons, it doesn\u2019t appear to be talking about a fully fledged H-bomb. It\u2019s more likely a boosted nuclear device,\u201d Kim said, referring to an atomic bomb which uses some hydrogen isotopes to boost explosive yield.<\/p>\n
A hydrogen bomb can achieve thousands of kilotons of explosive yield — massively more powerful than some 10 to 15 kilo tonnes that North Korea\u2019s last nuclear test in September was estimated to have produced, similar to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.<\/p>\n
Kim Jong Un, who visited the country\u2019s nuclear weapons institute, \u201cwatched an H-bomb to be loaded into new ICBM\u201d and \u201cset forth tasks to be fulfilled in the research into nukes,\u201d KCNA said.<\/p>\n
Pictures released by the agency showed Kim inspecting a silver-coloured, hourglass-shaped warhead in the visit accompanied by nuclear scientists, with a concept diagram of its Hwasong-14 long-range ballistic missile seen hanging on the wall.<\/p>\n
The shape shows a marked difference from pictures of the ball-shaped device North Korea released in March last year, and appears to indicate the appearance of a two-stage thermonuclear weapon, or a hydrogen bomb, said Lee Choon-geun, senior research fellow at state-run Science and Technology Policy Institute.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pictures show a more complete form of a possible hydrogen bomb, with a primary fission bomb and a secondary fusion stage connected together in an hourglass shape,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high since last month when North Korea threatened to launch missiles into the sea near the strategically located US Pacific territory of Guam after Trump said Pyongyang would face \u201cfire and fury\u201d if it threatened the US.<\/p>\n
North Korea further raised regional tensions on Tuesday by launching an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, drawing international condemnation.<\/p>\n
Trump and Abe spoke by phone and said that in face of an \u201cescalating\u201d situation with North Korea that close cooperation between their countries and with South Korea was needed, Abe told reporters.<\/p>\n
Trump told Abe that the United States, as an ally, was 100% with Japan, deputy chief cabinet secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two leaders reaffirmed the importance of close cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea in the face of the growing threat from North Korea,\u201d the White House said in a statement. \u201cPresident Trump noted that he looks forward to continued trilateral coordination on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United States has repeatedly urged China, the North\u2019s sole major ally, to do more to rein in its neighbour.<\/p>\n
Experts and officials have said North Korea could conduct its sixth nuclear test at any time, and that the reclusive country has maintained a readiness at its nuclear test site to conduct another detonation.<\/p>\n
The KCNA report made no mention of plans for a sixth nuclear test.<\/p>\n
US officials have told Reuters that while North Korea has had parts in place for a nuclear detonation going back several months, no new activity had been seen recently at its known nuclear test site in Punggye-ri in its northeastern region.<\/p>\n
North Korea last year conducted its fourth and fifth nuclear tests, saying the fourth in January 2016 was a successful hydrogen bomb test, although outside experts say the claim has not been proved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea \u201crecently succeeded\u201d in making a more advanced hydrogen bomb that will be loaded on to intercontinental ballistic missiles, the country\u2019s official KCNA news agency said. North Korea said on Sunday it has developed an advanced hydrogen bomb that possesses \u201cgreat destructive power\u201d as US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3619,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions\/3619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}